


Lights

by roquentine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU Irene, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BDSM, Blindfolds, Bondage, Butt Plugs, Electrical Stimulation, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Flogging, M/M, Nipple Clamps, Orgasm Denial, Riding Crops, There's something here for EVERYONE basically, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:20:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roquentine/pseuds/roquentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John navigate their way through a new facet of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on Tumblr](http://roquentine19.tumblr.com/) if you like and thank you for reading!

“Can we have the lights off tonight?”

Sherlock’s voice is low, almost breaking. John looks up from his computer and sees him standing in the doorway, his eyes drifting around the room, settling everywhere but on John. _He looks tired_ , John thinks.

“Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather just sleep?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “No. I want the lights off. If that’s okay with you.”

“Of course.” John gets up and moves to the door. He slides a hand along Sherlock’s cheek, encouraging him to lower his head for a kiss, affectionate and comfortable. He allows himself one brush of his hand through the hair covering Sherlock’s forehead, pushing it back, a gesture he knows Sherlock doesn’t really like but John loves to do it and Sherlock indulges him. He pulls his hand away and the curls fall back in place.

“What do you want?” John asks. There’s a strange, restive energy moving out of Sherlock, something John hasn’t sensed from him before, at least not since they started all this, and it concerns him a little. Sherlock’s eyes begin to dart around again, and he takes a couple of deep breaths, but doesn’t speak.

“Sherlock,” John says, his voice quiet, reassuring. “Tell me what you want. Nothing’s off the table, you know that. I’ll ask questions if I need to.”

“I want... to fight you,” Sherlock says, looking down now. “I want to fight you, and lose.”

“Okay.” He hasn’t asked for that before, but John doesn’t mind the idea; in fact, something in it appeals to him, too. Lord knows there were enough times he had to resist a physical reaction to frustration with Sherlock’s behavior; he could get behind a bit of roughhousing.

No, it’s not the request that has John bothered. It’s the way it’s being requested. Sherlock isn’t ordinarily hesitant to ask for anything.

“And…” Sherlock knits his brows together. “Don't let me…” He fidgets, breathes, closes his eyes. “Not tonight.”

John knows what this means. This, he’s asked for before. No release.

John hates it when he wants this.

He waits for Sherlock to look up at him, and holds his gaze for one second, then another, then a third. Sherlock’s eyes are unusually dark, and offer no clues.

“All right,” John finally says. “The lights are off. Go to your room, get everything ready, and wait for me.”

* * * * *

The lights are their code.

John had no experience at this when they first started. Sherlock brought it up about a month ago, suggesting, in a roundabout way, that it was something he was interested in. John had no problem with exploring it, but didn’t like attempting anything new without being somewhat prepared.

He knew about safewords already, but one word to end everything didn’t feel like enough. He learned that some people used traffic lights; green, yellow, red. A status check that can be asked and answered without interrupting the flow.

And so the lights became their code, their metaphor for the entire endeavour.

Sherlock was always the one to ask for the lights off. Sometimes he told John what he wanted that night, but he would also, occasionally, ask John to decide. John would determine when the lights went off, starting the scene, and either one could call the lights on when it was over. Sherlock didn’t want the ability to end it, but John was not comfortable being the only one with that power.

Not that Sherlock had used it yet anyway.

* * * * *

When John opens the door to Sherlock's room - the room they use when the lights are off - Sherlock is pacing. He’s removed his shirt but is still wearing jeans, already an infraction, but John ignores it for now.

“On your knees,” John says casually as he pushes the door closed behind him. This was always how it began. A simple directive, a starting point, to help Sherlock’s mind settle into John’s commands.

“No. Get out.”

John looks up, genuinely startled. He didn’t think it would start this soon. He hardens his tone, watching Sherlock pace.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said get on your knees.”

“And I said get out. Actually, what I meant to say was fuck off.” Sherlock spits the words at him, but doesn’t stop moving.

John watches him move for a second, and when Sherlock’s pacing turns again to approach the door, he hurls his body at him, slamming him uncomfortably against the bookshelf and catching his wrists behind his back. “You _will_ get on your knees for me, you fucking prat.”

“I will not. Get _off_ me.” Sherlock tries to jerk his arms free, but John’s lower center of gravity works in his favor, and he has plenty of strength to hold them down.

“I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but it’s useless,” John says calmly as Sherlock continues to struggle. Then his voice deepens, and he leans up into Sherlock’s ear. “I always get what I want, do you understand? Always. And the more you fight, the worse it will get for you.”

“Fuck. You,” Sherlock breathes through his teeth, shoving back against John’s body.

“Yeah, I doubt you’ll have that pleasure tonight, not with this attitude.” The next time Sherlock shoves back, John takes advantage of the momentum and practically flings him onto the bed, following closely behind. Sherlock lands awkwardly on his hip and tries to keep moving to the other side, but John comes down on top of him, straddling his upper thighs.

Sherlock levers up to push at John’s chest but John grabs his wrists once again. He comes up on his knees and pushes Sherlock back to the mattress with his own upper body, his hands on either side of Sherlock’s head. Sherlock stills for a moment.

“Stop this, right now,” John warns, his voice quietly calm and dead serious.

“Leave me _alone_ ,” Sherlock yells, trying to pull his hands free. John’s grip is tight and unyielding. “Fucking get off me. I don’t want this.”

John stares down at him. “What color are you?” he demands, his voice still low and threatening.

“Green.” Sherlock spits the word out through his teeth. “Now _get the fuck off._ ” He thrashes against John’s grip and occasionally manages to lift one fist or the other off the sheets for a split second, but the angle is terrible and John is _solid_.

John lets Sherlock struggle for a few more moments, and sighs. “Jesus, Sherlock, you’re a terrible liar.”

The non-sequitur surprises Sherlock, who momentarily stops his efforts to escape. “What are you talking about?” he asks, trying to catch his breath.

John lets his hips drop to Sherlock’s body and slides down until he can feel the pressure he knew he’d find. “See? I can already tell how hard you are. Your protests are for shit. This is exactly what you want.”

Sherlock’s narrowed eyes are burning. “No. It isn’t.”

“Well, your cock says differently. But I’m afraid your cock is going to have a very long night.” John shifts his knees out from under him and extends his body down the length of Sherlock’s, so he’s lying flat on top of him. He dips his tongue to Sherlock’s ear and sucks the lobe into his mouth, gnaws at it gently, then lets go. He grins as he feels Sherlock’s body shudder underneath him.

“Do… not… come,” John whispers, mouthing at his ear once more. “Do you hear me? No matter what I do to you tonight, don’t you dare come.” He shifts back up to a sitting position and looks down at his prey. “Are you done fighting me?”

Sherlock looks up at him, his eyes still on fire, but still unreadable. He sighs deeply. “Yes,” he says, the word a bite.

John regards him, and chuckles. “Right. Terrible liar.” He holds Sherlock’s wrists with one hand and reaches over to pull a velcro cuff from between the mattress and the headboard. There are four of them, attached to each leg of the bed. The placement of the cuffs is part of Sherlock’s job before they start.

While John is pulling the cuff open, Sherlock suddenly wrenches free. He sits up and begins to shove John off of him.

“Sherlock! Dammit!” Adrenaline pumping, John’s military training kicks in as a reflex. He tightens his legs around Sherlock’s middle for leverage and grabs his right wrist with both hands. He lets Sherlock’s left hand claw at his arm until he secures the first cuff. In less than six seconds, the other wrist is similarly secured.

Now they are both panting. John rolls off to one side and roughly yanks Sherlock’s body down the bed so his arms are as outstretched as they can be. He watches Sherlock struggle against the straps, but he doesn’t have enough slack to really get any momentum.

“Fuck,” John gasps. “We’re definitely doing your ankles, too. And don’t you fucking kick at me, or this ends right now. I mean it.”

Apparently the fight has, in fact, gone out of Sherlock, as he allows John to make quick work removing his jeans and pants. It doesn’t stop Sherlock from glaring at him while one leg is stretched tight towards the corner of the bed, and its ankle secured. When John reaches for his other ankle, he flinches it away. Not kicking, not breaking the rules. He just jerks it out of John’s grasp for a second.

“Ornery prick,” John mutters, forcefully pulling the ankle back into place, then securing and tightening the cuff.

* * * * *

_The fighting is fake. Of course it is._

_I mean, there’s no doubt you could take me, even if I did fight at full strength. I’m stronger than I look, but so are you, and you actually look strong to begin with._

_I hold back, though. I’m afraid it would spook you if I came at you with everything._

_My love. I know you’re trying._

* * * * *

“I really do like you like this,” John says, his tone casual. He’s standing at the foot of the bed, pulling his own shirt off over his head and undoing his jeans. “You’re so helpless. It’s cute.”

“Fuck off,” Sherlock mutters.

“Fuck _you_ , Sherlock. I’ve had just about enough. Do you want the gag?” John asks. He steps free of his jeans and crawls up the bed, straddling Sherlock once again. He drifts the back of his hand over Sherlock’s chest, dragging his nails, circling a nipple. “I believe I asked you a question,” he says quietly, as he suddenly pinches the hardened bud, and twists. Forcefully.

“No,” Sherlock gasps, his chest heaving up from the bed in reflex.

“Good,” John replies, “because I really need to be able to do... this.”

John slams his mouth down into Sherlock’s, forcing Sherlock’s jaw open and shoving his tongue as far inside as he can. His hands reach up and grip Sherlock’s head, holding it in place as he uses his lips and teeth and tongue to all but devour Sherlock from the inside out.

Sherlock can do nothing but follow John’s demanding lead. John hears him whimper deep in his throat, knowing he is stretching Sherlock’s jaw to painful limits. Sherlock is breathing loudly through his nose, but John doesn’t really care that he’s not getting enough air at the moment. He wants this, right now, and he's taking it.

Finally John relents, easing back the pressure and softening the kiss. Sherlock’s head lifts off the pillow when John pulls up, trying to maintain contact as long as he can. John lowers his mouth again, as if to offer another kiss, but pulls away just as Sherlock’s lips rise to meet his. He teases a second time, after which Sherlock lets his head fall to the pillow with a knot in his brow and a quietly voiced grunt.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” John says, thrilling at the sight of Sherlock’s mouth, reddened from his assault. “You’re going to watch me.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows relax as his eyes widen with interest.

“I haven’t finished,” John continues. “I’m going to have a wank, right at the end of your bed, and you’re going to watch me, but you have to watch my face, and only my face.” John smiles when Sherlock’s expression turns frustrated again.

“Only my face, Sherlock. You cannot look down at my cock. You’re going to watch my face as I come. And you have to maintain eye contact with me, watch my face the whole time, right up until I tell you otherwise, or you’ll be punished the moment I’m finished. Do you understand?”

Sherlock nods, his eyes already locked on John’s.

* * * * *

The punishment is simple, but it is powerful.

John leaves. He sleeps upstairs, and Sherlock is left alone for the night.

* * * * *

It’s not what Sherlock had asked for, at first.

He had asked for the crop.

John was unsure, but tried to comply. He set some rules, threatened ten lashes, which sounded like a reasonable number to him. Sherlock, unsurprisingly, broke the rules.

When John reached four, Sherlock grunted in a way that suggested more pain than pleasure, and John swallowed down a catch in his throat.

When he got to seven, he drew blood. Just a slight tear in the skin, nothing that would scar, and it healed over almost as soon as it appeared, but it was enough, or too much. He called for the lights to go on.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” he whispered, his voice failing him, dropping the crop as though it burned. He loosened Sherlock’s cuffs, and sank onto the bed, his head bowed. “The rest of it is fine, the tying you up, but I just… I don’t think I can... _hurt_ you. Not like this. I’m so sorry.”

Sherlock draped himself around John's back, and insisted he was okay, and it was okay.

A few days later, Sherlock presented John with the option of leaving. A submissive is supposed to be given aftercare, and while John isn’t sure that they’re really at that level with all this, he does believe that forcing Sherlock to sleep alone after the lights are on is distressing to him.

Frankly, John doesn’t like it either, but it’s not the queasy discomfort he felt when he was lashing at Sherlock’s skin with a weapon. This was basically punishment by withholding a reward, and that, he could deal with.

* * * * *

_The punishment means nothing. It’s not what I want. I proposed it because you needed it. You needed something to threaten me with that didn't cause physical pain. So I pretend._

_It’s understandable. You’ve been through a war. Of course you can’t disassociate violence. I can’t blame you for that._

_But it’s not enough. It just isn’t. And I don’t know how much longer I can act like it is._

* * * * *

Kneeling between Sherlock’s legs, it didn’t take long for John to notice the flaw in his plan.

By forcing Sherlock to maintain eye contact with him, he has to maintain eye contact with Sherlock. This wasn’t terribly difficult, and John certainly knows he won’t have a problem reaching orgasm while focusing only on Sherlock’s eyes, but it means he can’t allow himself to even briefly close his own, or throw his head back, or any of the things that were more or less habit by now when it came to a wank.

But he doesn’t want to give Sherlock even one second’s temptation to cheat, so he holds his gaze, spits into his hand, and works his cock.

“You look fucking amazing, all spread out like that. I got hard for you in about two seconds,” John says into Sherlock’s eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I wish I could undo your ankles, put your knees over my shoulders, and fuck you into the middle of next week.”

Sherlock’s breathing stutters and he sucks his lips into his teeth, but he doesn’t say anything, and his eyes do not waver.

“But no, you had to go and act up, and now I have to do this myself. And you can’t even see it. How full and hard I am, how I’m starting to leak…”

Sherlock makes a noise in the back of his throat. He is not just looking at John’s eyes now, but staring, and John is pretty sure that it’s because Sherlock can see the barest glimpse of what’s going on in his peripheral vision, and that’s what he’s concentrating on, even though his eyes are directed at John’s. In John’s own periphery, he can see Sherlock’s fists, strapped at the corners of the bed, clenching and releasing, over and over again.

John allows himself a glance at Sherlock’s body, and sees with satisfaction that Sherlock’s cock is thick and hard, straight up against his own stomach.

“God, you’re so ready, aren’t you? You’re gagging for it, and we just got started. You’re going to have a long night, I’m afraid.” He pulls on himself harder, faster, using his pre-ejaculate as lubrication along his shaft. He starts to thrust into his fist and reaches down to brace himself, grasping Sherlock’s calf with his free hand.

“Oh, God, Sherlock, I’m going to come soon. I’m going to come all over you, but don’t you dare look down. Watch my face. Look only at my face. Oh, God... fuck.... _yes_ …”

John falls forward, supporting his body on one arm, and spills himself all over Sherlock’s cock and stomach. With a half-grunt half-whine, Sherlock involuntarily thrusts his hips upward, meeting the warmth now spreading over his midsection. He is staring at John’s face so hard his eyes are practically bugging out of his head.

* * * * *

_Well now. This is new. I like it._

* * * * *

Sherlock is panting as if he had just come himself. His eyes are glued to John’s even as John collapses at his side, trying to catch his breath.

“God, that felt good.” John throws an arm over his eyes, fully aware that Sherlock is still looking at him, because John hasn’t told him he can stop.

He shifts up onto an elbow. “Will you come if I touch you right now? I’m going to clean you up a bit, but I can wait if you need to.”

Sherlock nods slightly. “Wait.” The word comes out as breath, barely audible.

“Okay. And you can stop looking at me.” John falls to his back again.

Sherlock exhales slow and controlled, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then stretches his neck and stares at the ceiling. “I fucking hate you right now,” he says quietly.

“Yes, I know,” John says, unfazed.

* * * * *

When Sherlock’s erection has waned just a bit, John gets a warm damp flannel and carefully, clinically, removes the evidence of his earlier activity. He reaches down to drop the cloth on the floor, and his hand returns holding a bottle of lube.

“Oh, fuck,” Sherlock says.

“That’s right,” John replies.

“With what?”

“You choose.”

Sherlock takes a deep breath. “The blue one,” he says, almost defiantly.

John is not surprised.

The blue one, as they refer to it, requires repositioning. John moves around the bed, unhooking each cuff from its leg of the bed frame. He lowers Sherlock’s arm to his side and pulls his ankle up until his heel meets his thigh, then cuffs the ankle and wrist together, and does the same on the other side. Sherlock fidgets a bit, rolling his shoulders, letting his knees splay out, then pulling them back parallel to the ceiling, and settles.

John removes the dildo and its vibrating bullet from the drawer beside the bed. The toy itself is blue silicone in a vague hook shape, with one end that vibrates against the prostate while the other end rests against the perineum. The small but powerful vibrator mechanism slips into a sleeve along the shaft, and John can turn it on and off by pressing a button at the outer end.

As an afterthought, John also pulls the eye mask from the drawer. “Maybe we should keep your attention from wandering," he says. He slips the mask over Sherlock’s head, centering it over his eyes.

“Now. You understand that it’s entirely up to you to tell me that I need to stop.” As he talks, John pours lube onto his hand and works one finger, then two, into Sherlock. “I can do this all night. You, however, can’t. You cannot come, so you need to tell me when you’ve had enough. The word ‘stop’ will be fine. Do you understand?”

Sherlock grunts his assent even as he tries so shove down against John’s hand.

“You’re eager for this? Really?” John leans over with a swift motion, his hand fisting in Sherlock’s hair as he shoves his mouth against his ear. His voice is low, just above a growl, and he thrusts his fingers into Sherlock with each word. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Come. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispers. John looks down and sees Sherlock’s cock twitch in response, and feels a strange sense of satisfaction. He withdraws his hand and moves back down below Sherlock’s knees. He pours lube over the toy and pushes it slowly into position.

He gives Sherlock a moment to get used to it before sliding the vibrator into the sleeve. He pushes the button to turn it on and almost immediately turns it back off, but not before Sherlock’s hips lift off the bed, as much as they can, in response.

“I take it I’ve hit the spot, then,” John says, almost calmly. He pushes the button again, letting it go for a fractionally longer time. A whine escapes Sherlock’s throat. His cock bobs up to his hip, and starts to leak.

John turns the vibrator on for a full second, and Sherlock tenses around it again, thrusting his hips up. He exhales loudly when it shuts off, and John uses one finger to draw the pre-ejaculate fluid down the shaft of his cock, almost idly. He turns the vibrator on again as his finger drifts back up.

“God, John,” Sherlock shouts, but does not say the magic word.

John shuts off the vibrator. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you over this,” and turns it back on again, letting almost five full seconds pass before he turns it off. Sherlock’s cock is now rock hard and straight up against his stomach, and his torso is bowed almost completely off the bed.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” Sherlock yells.

John lets him catch his breath for just a second before hitting the button again. He turns it off quite quickly, then waits a beat, turns it on for another two full seconds, then off. He waits six seconds, turns it on for three, turns it off. He continues in an irregular rhythm, watching Sherlock twist his head back and forth, then lift it up off the pillow, then back down. He’s jerking his ankles and wrists away from each other but the restraints hold tight, causing his knees to splay out as his body struggles to find some way to absorb the stimulation.

John turns the vibrator on and off at random for another minute, watching him flail, then pushes the button and leaves it on. Sherlock yells wordlessly for almost ten seconds, then, finally, breathlessly: “Stop, stop, stop…”

John stops the vibrator instantly and, as quickly as he can, slides the toy free of Sherlock’s body. Sherlock’s arms are ramrod straight at his sides, his knees pressed together tightly. He grimaces, gasping loudly through his teeth, and tries to come down.

* * * * *

John watches Sherlock, tense and wired, and waits for his breathing to even out. He is unsure how much longer he’s supposed to do this, how much farther he’s supposed to push him.

He can feel the tension still thrumming through Sherlock’s muscles as he moves his restraints back to their original positions, one at each corner of the bed, and Sherlock’s eyes are screwed tightly shut when he slips off the mask.

He decides on one more test of Sherlock’s seemingly unending well of control. If it was up to him, he’d end this right now, but this is not about him. None of this is about him, and he pushes down the agitation that is gnawing around the edges of this whole situation.

“I’m going to work you, with my mouth, for sixty seconds. Just one single minute, Sherlock, that’s all.”

“Fuck, no,” Sherlock says to the ceiling. “I can’t, John. I really can’t.”

John reaches for his mobile and taps open the timer. “Yes, you can. I know you can. Just one minute. You can yell anything you want the whole time, beg me, curse me, but I won’t stop unless you say ‘yellow’. If you do, I’ll pull off immediately, but I’m also hitting pause on this.” He shows Sherlock the single minute on the timer. “You can take just the time you need to collect yourself, no more, and we’re going to finish sixty seconds before the lights can go on.”

“Can I watch you?” Sherlock whispers the question.

“You can, but I would think that would make it worse. We’re getting through an entire minute.”

Sherlock seems to think better of his request and takes John’s advice. He settles his head back and closes his eyes.

John looks at him for a moment, oddly overwhelmed with affection at this particular moment. He closes his own eyes for a deep breath, then sets the mobile on the bed where he can see the countdown and settles himself on all fours between Sherlock’s legs. He allows himself a few seconds of indulgence, tasting the smooth skin of Sherlock’s stomach and, for now, ignoring his leaking erection.

Sherlock groans and shifts in a manner which makes John chuckle. “I haven’t started the timer yet, so you might want to stop urging me in that direction.” He continues mouthing at Sherlock’s abdomen, letting his tongue drag damp circles over his hipbone. Finally, he runs his hands up over long thighs, back and forth, then reaches to tap the start button.

“One minute,” he says, and in a swift movement, takes the head of Sherlock’s cock into his mouth, lifting it up, and sucks down its length.

Sherlock immediately gasps and thrusts up into John’s mouth, but John moves up with him, and pulls off to allow himself a brief smile. “Easy,” he murmurs, bringing a hand up to hold the base as he licks up to the head, lapping at the pre-come he finds there before closing his mouth around the tip once more. He moves down, then up again, flicking the underside with his tongue, and moaning a little, just to cause the vibration.

“I can’t… fuck… John, please…” Sherlock is yanking hard on his wrist cuffs, which hold tight. John casts his eyes to the timer; only twenty seconds have passed.

He pushes back down, allowing his teeth to barely skim the surface. “Oh, God,” Sherlock yells, and when John glances up he sees Sherlock’s body so rigid it is almost shaking, his chin pointed at the ceiling, and his breath coming in short bursts, like he is trying to hold it and failing.

Something pinches at John’s heart, which he ignores.

Instead, he decides to see just how badly Sherlock wants to deny himself, and starts pumping with his mouth eagerly, pulling Sherlock to the back of his throat before swiftly moving up his length, increasing the suction, then back down again. He doesn’t move his hand in tandem, but he loosens his grip, relinquishing the pressure and any help he may have been inadvertently providing in staving off Sherlock’s orgasm.

“Fuck... John... you... have to… you have to... stop...”

Sherlock can barely get the words out in between gasps, but none of them are the one word that will actually stop John, so John ignores him, does not even slow down. He hears a long, low moan emanate from Sherlock’s throat, and every leg muscle under John’s hands feels like stone, tensed, tight, immobile.

The alarm pings.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Sherlock yells when his cock slips free of John’s mouth and bobs heavy to his hip. His next few breaths are punctuated with loud, frustrated guttural noises as John silences the alarm.

“That’s it, love, that was a minute, we’re all done. Try not to move.” John holds as still as he can, not wanting to so much as breathe, lest one more fraction of sensory input push Sherlock over the edge.

But then he glances at Sherlock’s cock, red and swollen and _angry_ , and the sight of it makes him angry too, because fuck Sherlock and his fucking masochistic self-denial. He wants so badly to pull that cock back into his mouth, pump him hard and fast, rip the orgasm he knows he would cause right the fuck out of the man, watch him come apart and thrash against his restraints, hear him scream as John sucks him into the back of his mouth and swallows around him, swallows every last drop, and keeps working his throat around the head until the hypersensitivity becomes cruelly, unbearably painful, and let _that_ be Sherlock’s fucking punishment.

But he can’t. Sherlock asked him for this. And John will not do a single thing to jeopardize Sherlock’s trust. It took him so long to earn it, so long to even get Sherlock to acknowledge that something existed between them, starting with just _friendship,_ much less this. This took _ages_ of John’s patience, of quiet nights and occasional pints and working cases and doing the shopping, and making sure everything he ever did said I’m here, I’m right here beside you and I’m never leaving again, knowing that trying to reassure him with mere words would never get it done.

John came back because he realized that Sherlock was all he wanted in the world, and he was willing to sit in their living room a thousand nights in a row to prove it.

So he will not act on his anger. Not here, in this room, in this moment, in their metaphorical darkness. He’ll never do that. Here, now, he will play the part he agreed to play for this man he loves beyond measure.

“Don’t move, just breathe. You can control this. I’m so proud of you.”

Sherlock’s eyes are still squeezed shut, and there are tears running down his face, turned and buried in the pillow. He fights to get through the next second, then the next, without letting go.

“Fuck,” Sherlock says again, almost a whisper.

* * * * *

_This._

* * * * *

Minutes pass, and John doesn’t move. He waits for Sherlock’s breathing to return to normal, watches carefully as his erection fades and the rest of his body relaxes along with it. When he sees Sherlock make a couple of small involuntary jerks, a reaction to the chill he must be feeling as the sweat evaporates from his body, John releases each cuff, massaging Sherlock’s long limbs as he goes, warming the skin and restoring circulation. He gently bends each leg at the knee, then settles it on the mattress at a relaxed angle, and does the same for his arms, laying them carefully at his sides. Sherlock still hasn’t moved of his own accord.

When John is finished, he crawls up one more time to rub at Sherlock’s strained shoulders. “The lights are on, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock says, and John can hear that he means it, but his face is still passive, exhausted, inscrutable. John gently hovers over him, leaning in for a tentative, languid kiss, which Sherlock accepts without hesitation.

John moves down, tasting the salted skin of Sherlock’s pale neck, mouthing over a collarbone, dipping his tongue into the depressions of his throat. He’s beginning to kiss a path down Sherlock’s sternum when he feels a hand under his arm. Sherlock is just resting it there, but the meaning is clear.

John’s eyes are filled with concern. “Sherlock? The lights are on. I want to do this. Let me... take care of you.”

Sherlock shakes his head, so slightly. “No. Please, John. Please?” Now he does pull, and John resigns, lets himself be moved off, settling in against Sherlock’s side. John’s hand moves up to cup Sherlock’s cheek, thumbing away a last bit of wetness out of the corner of his eye, then brushing the damp curls from his forehead.

He pulls his hand back and tucks it against his own chest. His voice is barely above a whisper. “Sherlock. What is going on?”

Sherlock looks at John for a long moment, opens his mouth and breathes in like he is going to say something. But he just burrows his head into John’s shoulder, and exhales.

* * * * *

_Please don’t make me tell you it’s not enough._

_* * * * *_


	2. Chapter 2

At some point, in the middle of the night, John drifts awake to discover Sherlock mouthing lightly at his chest.

This happens more often than not, after the lights.

John moves to thread his fingers through the hair at the back of Sherlock’s head, letting him know he’s awake. Sherlock starts moving over John with purpose, pulling a nipple into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth, and finally biting down on it, eliciting a muffled groan that John suspects was the intent.

At that, Sherlock moves up to cover John’s mouth with his own. The kiss is passionate and eager, not punishing in the manner that John’s was earlier, but hot and needy and arousing. John’s hands roam down Sherlock’s back, smoothing over its length, reaching down over his arse, pressing their hips together.

Sherlock breaks the kiss and holds himself up, looking down at John for a long moment as they pause to catch their breath.

“I do love you,” he says simply.

“I know,” John replies with a quiet smile. This was not the easiest thing in the world for Sherlock to acknowledge, much less learn how to say, and John preens a little inside every time it happens out loud. “And I love you.”

“Good,” Sherlock says, a grin ghosting over his mouth. He lowers his head back to John’s chest, laying kisses slowly down to his belly, and without looking up, reaches a hand to the table next to the bed, blindly finding the bottle of lube.

“Oh, Christ,” John moans in anticipation. He lets his head fall back to the pillow and closes his eyes, focusing on every point of contact his skin has with the tumble of limbs currently crawling down his body.

He groans as Sherlock’s mouth finds that twitchy line between his abdomen and his thigh. It’s one of his most sensitive areas, which Sherlock is keenly aware of. He feels the very tip of his tongue trail along its length, back and forth, with the barest hint of pressure. John tries to hitch up into the touch, and Sherlock pulls up, out of reach, chuckling.

John waits, his eyes still tightly closed, a moment, then another, and then gasps involuntarily as he feels Sherlock’s flat tongue lick a long, slow stripe up the underside of his erection.

“God, yes, Sherlock…” The words tumble out without conscious thought. He can feel Sherlock grin against his hip as a fist closes around the base of his cock and pumps once, twice. Then Sherlock’s mouth closes around the head and follows his hand down the shaft.

John exhales and dares a glance, the minimal light in the room showing him only a mop of curls moving slowly up and down. John’s head thrashes back as his hips thrust up before he realizes he's done it. He feels the head of his cock bump against the back of Sherlock’s throat, and Sherlock gags for a second, but quickly recovers.

“Sorry, love,” John breathes, and Sherlock’s hand covers John’s, squeezing a reassurance as he resumes his rhythm.

A minute later Sherlock does pull off. As one hand continues to pump him, John feels Sherlock’s long fingers trace a path lightly over his balls, then further back, and he pulls up his knees shamelessly.

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” John shudders as he hears the bottle snap open. A moment later he feels one lubed knuckle press against his opening. Sherlock rotates the knuckle around the muscle a few times, then slides one strong finger inside.

John gasps and grits his teeth, then relaxes into the sensation. Sherlock continues to work his cock as he slides a second finger in, moving both hands slowly in a coordinated rhythm.

John moans, almost mindlessly. “Jesus, Sherlock, I can’t… please, inside, _now_ …”

And Sherlock complies. He strokes lube over his own erection and then quickly climbs back up, stopping to kiss John hungrily for a few long moments before positioning himself against John’s stretched entrance and slowly, steadily, pushing his entire length inside.

The anxiety and tension, the worry and the frustration, John feels all of it drain out of him as Sherlock starts moving, slowly at first, then gradually increasing the pace. There’s room for nothing but sheer need, his desire for this man above him suffusing every cell in his body. He pushes down to meet each of Sherlock’s thrusts and lets himself get lost in it, just for now. His hand reaches for his cock but Sherlock slaps it away and begins to move his own hand up and down in rough uneven jerks but John doesn’t care, it’s enough, it’s enough, it’s too much and he fists the sheets and throws his head back and comes over his stomach with a long, low groan.

Sherlock strokes him through it, then plants his hand back on the bed and begins to pound into John in earnest. John drifts for a long moment, overwhelmed by sensation, then becomes dimly aware that Sherlock’s movements are starting to feel somewhat desperate. He reaches up and grips Sherlock’s neck.

“Come for me,” he gasps. “God, Sherlock, let me feel you…”

Sherlock lowers his head into the crook of John’s neck and shoulder and slams his hips home three more times until finally, finally, he lets go.

His release pours out of him with a shuddering, almost pained silence, his eyes screwed shut, his face buried against John’s neck. He falls to his elbows and forgets to breathe for a long time, until his lungs begin to burn.

“It’s all right, love,” John whispers. He can feel Sherlock’s eyes watering against his skin. “You're all right...”

Sherlock’s mouth finds his, and he inhales the words.

* * * * *

They lay together, now, in their post-fucking daze.

They lay together, Sherlock’s head on John’s chest, every limb hooked around another, pressing themselves into each other, never getting close enough, and John knows there will never be a good time to talk about this, so he thinks _fuck it_ and picks the worst time.

“It’s not enough.”

John feels every muscle in Sherlock’s body seize still in an instant.

“Hey, it’s okay. Sherlock. We’ll be okay. But we should talk about it.” He runs a palm over Sherlock’s long, smooth back, willing him to relax, to breathe again. He waits until he feels some of the tension ease before he continues, careful to keep his tone matter-of-fact.

“What I’m doing, when the lights go off, it’s not enough.”

“No.” It’s a whisper. John has enabled the confession, and they’re still here, still entwined, still breathing, each of them vulnerable, but trying desperately to navigate this moment with honesty.

John thinks about how to ask the question he needs to ask. “Can you tell me… what it does for you? I mean, obviously it’s not just… for fun.”

“No,” Sherlock whispers again.

They’re still here. Sherlock inhales, exhales, inhales against his chest. John leans down to press a gentle kiss to the crown of Sherlock’s head. He waits.

“I can’t... shut it off. Not really. Not on my own.”

John closes his eyes against this. He teases Sherlock about it, and he knows he shouldn’t, and he vows right here never to do it again. The truth is he doesn’t like to think about how difficult it must be to live inside that head, all the time, every waking moment at a million miles an hour.

“And no one lets me take drugs anymore, so I do… this.”

“It helps,” John says simply.

“It helps. I can... ignore the endless deductions, the constant mapping of connections and evaluating conclusions. It all… just… stops. It’s the only time it ever does. Someone telling me what to do, restricting my movement, relieves me of making decisions. The pain creates an environment where everything becomes white noise. And the denial, the fight to stay in control, to stave off release, takes so much concentration, so much focus, nothing else can get in.”

“And I’m… _not_... helping, right? Not as much as you’d want me to?”

At this, Sherlock lifts his head to press a quiet kiss to John’s chest and starts to untangle himself from John’s body while John moves to sit up against the headboard.

They need to look at each other, to do this part.

Sherlock sits back by John's legs and John recognizes the expression, the silence, the same as a moment before, when Sherlock is trying to choose his words carefully, which is not something that comes naturally to him.

“It provides a temporary escape, yes, but it isn’t… _necessary_. It isn’t something I need to do to survive the day, or be happy, or even to stay off drugs, really. And I won’t sacrifice… this. You. I will never ask you do to anything that makes you _un_ happy just to help me to a few moments of quiet.”

John knows he means it, and his heart wells a little bit, and maybe his eyes, too. It took them so fucking long to reach this point, the point where they could say out loud that the other’s happiness was more important than their own, and that’s why they were finally here.

John blinks away the emotion, for the moment. “How long have you been doing this?”

“The first time was a couple of years before I met you. It was right after the last time Mycroft… well, the last time he had to... intervene. He threatened to tell our parents… that’s his big gun, the one threat that always works… and told me I needed to figure out another way. He made a couple of suggestions.”

John winces, which makes Sherlock smile.

“Don’t worry. This kind of thing isn’t for him, so you can get _that_ mental picture out of your head.” They chuckle softly, breaking the tension a bit.

“He just knows, you know, everyone.” Sherlock rolls his eyes. “People. Places I could go, people who were trained to… help. But John, I haven’t been since you came back, obviously. I won’t ever go again.”

John realizes he has another question he wants to ask. A request, really. But unlike a moment ago, when he needed to see Sherlock’s face, he has the opposite instinct now. He wants to ask this question in the dark, to give Sherlock a measure of privacy to process it, so he can decide how he wants to answer without being influenced by what he might read in John's eyes.

“Come back here, yeah?” John’s hand reaches for Sherlock’s and pulls him, shifting down so Sherlock is over him once again. Their kiss is slow, patient, full of honesty and the spark of heat that’s always, always there.

Sherlock settles against John’s chest, in the same position as before. They breathe together in silence for a few minutes, and John wonders if Sherlock has slipped into sleep until he hears his muffled voice.

“What is it?”

He shouldn’t be surprised that Sherlock is equally as able to sense tension in his own body. He takes a deep breath, and makes his second potentially relationship-altering statement of the night.

“I want to see… what you need.”

* * * * *

_Oh, John. No. You are the last and best and only. This is a terrible idea._

* * * * *

“I’ve just told you,” Sherlock says carefully. “I only need this. I only _need_ you.”

“What you _want_ , then,” John replies, forgiving that Sherlock tried to dodge the question. He’d have done the same thing. “I just want to try to understand it a little. See if it’s… possible. For us.”

“John...” Sherlock starts to push up again, but John threads a hand into his hair and keeps him pressed to his chest.

“Listen. I’m not promising anything, okay? I heard everything you said. I know you won’t expect me to do anything I’m not comfortable with, and I accept that you are willing to give up this part of your life for me, for the sake of us. But pop culture nonsense aside, I don’t really know that much about it. I’m guessing what I’ve been doing has probably been very amateur. Let me see what’s really involved, what really happens to you. Let me try to understand it. I’ll tell you if I think I can’t do it.”

“We tried, that one time. It didn’t go well.”

“I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, Sherlock. It goes against everything in my nature to cause you pain. I think there’s ample evidence, through the course of our history together, that my tolerance for you in any kind of distress or danger is quite ridiculously low. For me to be the one to cause it, it might take some getting used to.”

Sherlock’s arms tighten around John’s middle.

John sighs. “I mean, we’ve made some progress, right? I’ve realized I don’t mind bossing you around sometimes.” John feels Sherlock smile into his chest at this. “The rest of it… I just need to learn, don’t it? Get more data. Observe.”

He can very nearly hear the synapses firing in Sherlock’s brain, playing a thousand chess matches through to the end, testing every scenario, making absolutely sure they will come through it intact.

“Okay,” Sherlock whispers, then finds his voice. “Once. We’ll go once, and you can see.”

“Okay,” John says. He feels trepidation, certainly, but it’s overshadowed by his genuine curiosity and desire to understand what all this means to Sherlock. Because as much as he can’t bear the idea of Sherlock in distress, he also can’t deny him a single thing.

He is struck by how this very conversation reflects the course of their entire unexpected relationship, nothing but diagonals and curves and forks and doglegs and doubling back. He’s proud of the way they’ve learned to negotiate their peculiar and complicated path, each now always in care of the other.

He presses another kiss to the mop of curls under his chin. “And Sherlock, listen. I’m serious about this part. If it turns out I can’t handle it, and there are times when you feel like you need it…”

“Nope,” Sherlock interrupts flatly.

John continues like he didn’t hear him. “...you should go back. Whenever you need to. I would understand.”

Sherlock sighs and starts to sit up again, and this time pushes his way through John’s half-hearted attempt to keep him in place. He finds John’s gaze and holds it for a second before he speaks.

“John, think about your life right now. Think about what brings you comfort, pleasure, a sense of joy or safety or satisfaction. All the things you love and seek out. Your favorite pint, that ridiculous green squishy ravioli dish you always order at Angelo’s, the jumpers your grandmother knit for you, all the way up to the practice of medicine.” Sherlock pauses. “Think about everything like that. Is there anything on that list that you wouldn’t give up for me? Is there anything you do, anything you have, that you wouldn’t delete from your life if I told you, for whatever reason, that I needed you to?”

John’s breath catches in his throat as the point Sherlock’s making comes into sharp relief. He wonders how he will ever get used to the idea that he is capable of loving someone this much, and that the very same someone loves him that much in return.

“I’d give up every single thing on that list for you,” he says, knowing in his heart it is the absolute truth. “All of them. Without question or hesitation.”

“I believe that you would. Do you believe me when I tell you I feel the same?”

John nods and is surprised when he feels tears he swears came out of nowhere trailing down his cheeks. “Dammit,” he says, embarrassed, scrubbing at them with the palm of his hand.

“Okay then. Can we sleep now?”

"Yeah." John's voice is barely a whisper. Sherlock turns, pulling John onto his side as he does so, and backs into John's body. John threads an arm through, covering Sherlock's heart with his hand, and breathes.

 


	3. Chapter 3

John is always brimming with questions in the backs of vehicles, and today is no exception. This time, however, they are in back of neither a London cab nor one of Mycroft’s black cars, but a proper limousine, which is apparently part of the service this rainy afternoon.

“Where are we even going? It’s a dungeon, right? Are we going to a dungeon?”

“No, we’re not going to a dungeon. We’re going to a very respectable-looking house in Maida Vale, owned by a company with several respectable-looking houses scattered around the city. There will be rooms in the basement level, and we will be making use of one of them, but the upstairs lobby looks more or less like any other boring office waiting room.”

“So there’s not going to be random people just walking around naked, right? On leashes or whatever? I’m not sure I could handle that.”

Sherlock turns and gives him The Face.

(John used to hate The Face, before, but now he loves it. Sometimes he lies about not understanding something just to get Sherlock to make The Face. He is only sort of doing it this time. He knows he is babbling. He is really jittery.)

(Also, Sherlock is dressed in black jeans and a skin-tight black t-shirt, which doesn’t happen very often, or ever, really, and John is finding it extraordinarily distracting.)

“No, John. You will see no naked people. Well, you’ll see me, but presumably that is acceptable.”

“Right, and who else will be seeing you naked?”

“Her name is Irene.”

Now John is legitimately taken aback. “A woman?”

“Yes.” Sherlock turns to look at him. “Why does that surprise you?”

“Because… you’re… I don’t know... gay?” John can’t tell if Sherlock is taking the piss, or if this is just one of the million things he doesn’t understand about what he now refers to in his head as All This.

Sherlock sighs. “So is Irene, as it happens. The point of this isn’t an emotional connection, John. It’s about surrendering your essential physical autonomy, for however long you’ve agreed to do so. Sex happens to be the particular... conduit, I suppose would be the closest word. I’ve tried this with both men and women and found that it makes no real difference, so it’s just a preference of individual personality, and aesthetic, if you want to call it that. Irene is good, and I like her.”

“And she’s okay with me… observing?”

Sherlock smiles. “She loves an audience. I’d never agreed to that before. She’s looking forward to meeting you. But John…” The smile disappears, and Sherlock shifts in his seat to look at John directly. “You can’t interrupt her. You know that, right? If something… upsets you, you’ll just need to leave, and wait for me upstairs.”

“I understand.” John has to stop himself from imagining what kinds of scenarios would actually cause him to leave. He really, really doesn’t want it to come to that.

The car pulls up to an externally unremarkable row house. Sherlock doesn’t wait for the chauffeur but pulls the car door open himself and bounds out, and John is almost relieved to see a sign that Sherlock might be a little nervous as well. John slides over and exits after him, taking deep breaths as they climb the stairs to the door.

While Sherlock rings the bell and looks up at a camera in the corner of the portico, John glances back at the street. He knows it is impossible that anyone blithely walking would know why they are there, but still not totally certain that they don’t.

There’s a loud buzz, and Sherlock pushes the door open.

When John steps through, he sees that Sherlock’s assessment was more or less accurate; the room looks like the waiting room of a doctor’s office. There are several chairs and sofas scattered around, end tables with magazines, and unobtrusive modern art decorating the walls.

Sherlock approaches the only person in the room, a bored-looking girl sitting at what John assumes is meant to be a front desk. She looks about twenty and can barely be bothered to glance up from her phone when they approach.

“Good afternoon. We’re here for Miss Adler,” Sherlock says.

The girl taps at an iPad mounted on a stand to her left. She looks at the screen and waits, then returns her gaze to her phone when the iPad provides whatever information she was waiting for. “Okay. You can go on down.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock replies calmly. He reaches for John’s hand and leads him to the staircase at the back of the hall, then down the steps, and through another corridor to a sliding door with the number “3” in an elegant script painted above the handle.

“This one's hers,” Sherlock says, and as soon as he finishes speaking, he pulls John’s mouth to his. They kiss for a few slow moments, but there is, in fact, a nervousness on both sides as they separate. John leaves his eyes closed as they drift apart, and feels Sherlock’s hand reach up to his cheek.

“Ready?” Sherlock asks, concern evident in his voice.

John opens his eyes and the corner of his mouth crooks into a smile. “Let’s do this.”

Sherlock smiles back and knocks twice without breaking eye contact with John. Several moments later, they hear a bolt lock move out of place, and the door slides open, and they turn to look.

The woman at the door is dressed all in black, from the strapless leather bustier, to the relatively demure silk lace-trimmed boy shorts, to the garters holding up thigh-high silk stockings, to the over-the-knee leather stiletto boots. A black floor-length lingerie robe floats down from her shoulders, covering her arms to the wrists in sheer fabric. She has large dark blue eyes, accentuated by full lashes and a simple thin application of black eyeliner. Her lips and nails are a matching shade of blood red, and her dark hair is pulled back into a slick straight ponytail.

John is not surprised by the woman’s beauty, but he is surprised by the warmth she is exuding. She is smiling at them, her glance bouncing from one to the other, one hand resting on the edge of the door, the other holding a riding crop loosely at her side.

“Welcome,” she says brightly.

Sherlock smiles back at her as he enters. John casts his eyes around the room, trying to take it all in without looking like that’s what he’s doing.

The large rectangular room looks at first glance like an oddly unfinished den. The floors are a smooth polished hardwood, though the plaster walls are painted a neutral beige, and there’s a large stained armoire against the wall opposite them. About three feet in front of it is a long, waist-high bench, covered in stretched suede.  Next to the armoire along the wall is a basic small bar sink, with various bottles along its edge and a stack of clean towels underneath. There are several standing lamps throughout the room, providing soft, dim light.

The only thing that looks rather ridiculously out of place is the large open metal cage at the far right end. The cage has three walls, each about a foot in from the walls of the room itself, and a ceiling about a foot lower than the room’s ceiling. There is an assortment of carabiner clips, loops of leather and rope, and adjustable bars attached at seemingly random points around the cage, and there are various gears and a small wheel at the edge of the cage wall nearest the armoire.

After taking in the room, John realizes that he is also not quite done taking in the woman, who he sees now is more than beautiful; she’s really quite striking. He still feels off-balance by the fact that she is so casually friendly, like they’re all meeting at a dinner party.

“Irene Adler, this is Doctor John Watson,” Sherlock says.

Irene looks at John, holding his gaze as she calmly says “On your knees.” For one brief ridiculous instant, John wonders if there’s been some confusion about who is here for what and if maybe he should just follow the command himself out of politeness until they get it all sorted.

But then he feels Sherlock drop to the ground next to him.

“A pleasure to meet you, Doctor Watson,” Irene smiles warmly. “Why don’t you and I chat a minute before we get started?” She motions toward a leather sofa backed against the far wall opposite the cage, which John hadn’t even seen on his first sweep of the room.

“Um, okay, sure,” he stammers, glancing down at Sherlock, who is sitting back on his heels with his arms at his sides, his head bowed. Aside from some deep, even breathing, the only movement he’s making is with his hands, making fists and shaking them out in turn.

Irene notices John’s questioning look. “That’s how he prepares,” she says as she closes the door and turns the lock. “You may not have noticed it before, he’ll have done it before you joined him. Come sit down.” She places a hand on his back, and he lets her guide him to the sofa.

John sits, at first perching on the edge, then sitting back, so self-conscious that his body doesn’t feel like it belongs to him right now. Irene sits easily beside him, turning to him and leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees and letting the riding crop dangle casually from where it is looped over her hand. She smiles warmly.

“Can you tell me why you’re here?” she asks, and John has to bite back a pained laugh at the unexpected reminder of Ella in this particular moment.

“I thought… didn’t Sherlock?... I thought he would have explained it.”

“He did, but I'd like to hear it from you.”

“Sure. Okay. Yeah.” John rubs his palms along the tops of his thighs, trying to figure out where to start. He can’t help but look up at Sherlock, who has stilled his hands. He looks quickly back at his lap, reminding himself that he asked for this, that this is happening because of him, he can do this, he can.

Irene puts a hand on his knee for a moment, bringing his attention back. “John. Sherlock told me that you’ve recently started trying some of this, is that right?”

“Yes,” John exhales.

“And that you’re uncomfortable with parts of it? The pain elements in particular?”

“Yeah. I mean... I was... in the army. In Afghanistan. I don’t know if he told you that?”

“He did,” she nods.

“Right. Yes. So. I was in the army, and I guess to put it very simply, maybe because I’ve seen pain… a _lot_ of pain... inflicted on people, all this” - he waves a hand to indicate the All This which now exists tangibly in this room - “...it isn’t something that’s easy for me to get my head around.”

“That’s understandable,” Irene says. “Sherlock told me he tried to explain to you how it helps him.”

“He did, and it made sense, in some ways, I guess, but I still… I don’t know. I thought if I could see… what happens, just as an observer, then maybe I’d be able to compartmentalize, and learn how to… help him… myself.” John sighs.

“Okay,” Irene says, returning a hand to his knee and rubbing it gently. John is surprised by how non-sexual a gesture it is, considering the context. “Now. How much did Sherlock tell you about what will happen here?”

“Not that much,” John admits. “I imagine he didn’t want to scare me off. He did say that I’m not to interrupt you, and if anything makes me uncomfortable, I can wait upstairs.”

“That’s right. We’ll be here about an hour. You should know that Sherlock has expressly agreed to anything that is about to happen. It might help to keep that in mind. He will be in pain, certainly…” - Irene’s voice reflects an unmistakable note of anticipation as she turns to look down at Sherlock’s kneeling form - “...but he won’t be injured, not in any way that couldn’t be resolved with paracetamol and some rest.”

“Does he have a safeword?”

“He does, but he’ll be gagged, eventually. Probably sooner rather than later, unless he's changed his ways. At that point I’ll put a small piece of silk in his hand, which he’ll be able to drop if he needs to.”

“I don’t suppose that’s ever actually happened before,” John says wryly.

“Not once,” Irene confirms. “Safewords are necessary tools, and I want my clients to acknowledge their own limits. But the more I worked with him, the more I realized his tolerance is just absurdly high.”

John looks down at Sherlock, and a wave of concern passes visibly over his face.

“I don’t mean to worry you. I am a professional, Doctor Watson, and a very good one. I will cause him a great deal of pain, but as counterintuitive as it sounds, I know how to do it safely. Would you believe I was a nurse in my previous life?”

John doesn’t even try to hide his surprise at this. Irene laughs.

“I know. Like I said, counterintuitive. But it means I know how to give him what he’s looking for here, and I know how to approach the line without crossing it, which might reassure you a bit. If you find you need to leave, please do so quietly, and I’ll come and get you when we’re done. However, I think I should mention the other possibility.”

“What other possibility?”

“That you might, in fact, find what happens to him to be incredibly arousing.” She smiles at him. “It’s not an unusual reaction, Doctor Watson. I’m encouraging you to stay open to the possibility and embrace it if it happens. You should also feel free to deal with it in any way you like. It certainly won’t shock me.”

Irene stands, and John does too, a chivalrous instinct that seems ridiculous now he’s done it. She looks at him expectantly. “Do you have any other questions before we begin?”

John is staring at her, stuck on the fact that she just calmly invited him to have a wank in front of her if he needed one, until he realizes he’s supposed to say something. “No,” he tries once, then clears his throat when he hears his voice didn’t work. “I’ll just…” and sits back down awkwardly, then closes his eyes for one deep breath, listening to the sound of Irene’s heels as she crosses the room.

As he exhales, he opens his eyes again and looks at Sherlock, who has not moved a muscle during their entire conversation.

* * * * *

Irene stands in front of the open armoire, perusing its contents with a critical eye. The inside of it is hidden from John by the angle of the doors, and the light is too low for him to see anything anyway, but he watches as she removes a few things and sets them carefully on the leather bench. She opens a drawer in the bottom half of the armoire, removes a few more objects, then one last thing from the drawer below. She lays everything out on the bench, arranging each item carefully. John can see some oblong shapes and the dull blackness of leather, but little else.

“Now then,” Irene says, turning her attention to the figure kneeling still and silent by the door. “Sherlock Holmes. It’s been a while since you’ve been to see me. Should we review the rules?” She walks over to stand in front of him.

At this, Sherlock raises his head to glance at her. Almost instantly, with a flick of her wrist, Irene connects the tongue of the riding crop with the middle of Sherlock’s back. He grunts and immediately lowers his head again. She begins to move in a close, slow circle around him.

“Apparently a review is indeed necessary. You only have three rules, Sherlock, I’d have thought you could remember them. Three rules, which you can tell me in six words. Say them.”

“Don’t look, don’t speak, don’t come,” Sherlock recites.

“Good,” Irene replies. “Very good. Say them again.”

“Don’t look, don’t speak, don’t come.”

“And in two more words, just so you remember, what do you never, ever get from me?”

Sherlock keeps his head down, but smiles just a little bit. “Second chances.”

“That’s right. Take off your shirt.”

Sherlock lifts off the backs of his heels until he is kneeling straight up. His eyes don’t leave the floor as he loosens his t-shirt from the waistband of his jeans, then reaches back and pulls it forward over his head. He extricates his arms and drops the shirt to the floor next to him, then sits back again.

“Very nice,” Irene purrs, drawing the crop lightly over Sherlock’s torso, then over his back, as she continues to circle him. “Someone’s been feeding you. You’ve filled out a little since I saw you last. I like it. Stand up.”

Sherlock rocks back on his heels and stands in one fluid motion, keeping his eyes down as Irene walks around him once more. She smacks his arse with the crop in a way that is surprisingly but irrefutably affectionate.

“I have missed you,” she says. “You were always one of my favorites. Follow me, please.”

She leads him over to the bench. Irene lays her riding crop down alongside the other objects from the armoire, and looks up at Sherlock.

“Everything on the table could play a part in your session if and when I decide to use it. I don’t think there’s anything here that’s new to you, but please take a look. You may speak if you have a question about how something might be used.”

Sherlock casts his eyes over the objects on the table, one by one. He says nothing.

“Is there anything you wish to remove from the table? Answer out loud, yes or no.”

“No, ma’am,” Sherlock says quietly, his eyes back to the floor.

Irene seems satisfied. “All right then. Turn around, take off the rest of your clothes, right where you’re standing, and wait.”

While Sherlock is removing his shoes and jeans, Irene moves past the table to the metal wheel at the side of the cage. She moves a bar underneath it which appears to unlock it, then slowly rotates the wheel. The ceiling of the cage lowers. When it’s at the height she wants, she moves the bar back into the locked position.

She turns back to the table and picks up a pair of thick cuffs. They look almost like padded fingerless gloves, with a wide band encircling the wrist and a narrower one over the palm, designed to give the wearer something to grip. They each have a short length of chain attached to the back of the wrist, with a carabiner clip at the end.

Irene reaches for Sherlock’s hands and one at a time slides them into the cuffs, adjusting the buckles and checking the fit carefully. When she is satisfied, she steps back.

“You know where to go,” she says, her voice low.

Sherlock moves to a particular spot under the center front part of the cage ceiling, and turns to face the room.

Irene follows him. She lifts each cuff chain to the grid, about two feet apart over his head. She moves to the wheel at the side of the cage and raises the ceiling until Sherlock’s arms are just short of fully extended, still a relatively comfortable position. She picks the riding crop back up and taps it into her palm.

"Now then, Sherlock Holmes." Irene looks at him almost like a painter regarding a canvas. “What are we going to do to take you out of that pretty little head of yours?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Irene raises the end of the crop to Sherlock’s throat and drags it back and forth across his collarbone, then down to one nipple. She circles it twice, then whips the leather tongue down on it with some force. She moves the crop so quickly that John hears the impact before he even registers that she’s drawn it back.

Sherlock grunts, but says nothing.

“Good,” she says, as she continues drawing the crop over his chest and stomach. She lands another blow to the outside of his hip, and this time the grunt is accompanied by a twitch from his cock.

She continues tracing the crop around his body, landing blows intermittently, without warning, and everywhere from his ankles to the back of his neck. He makes a noise deep in his throat with each one, and he has started to breathe more audibly through his nose, but otherwise doesn’t struggle.

“Very good,” Irene says, after she’s circled him a few more minutes. She moves back to the bench and lays down the crop, then pulls on a pair of black latex gloves. She reaches over to one of the bottles by the sink and pumps what John decides must be lube into one palm. On her way back to Sherlock, she casually picks up an item from the bench, hooking it around a finger by its ring handle.

As she moves in front of Sherlock, John can see quite clearly that it’s a butt plug. Neither too large or too small, but  _reasonable_ , is the absurd word that comes to John's mind. It's smooth and clear, and could be acrylic, but judging by the weight as it dangles from Irene's hand, it's probably solid glass.

Irene walks slowly to Sherlock’s back, coating the bulb with the lube in her hand. “Sherlock,” she says, in a calm but authoritative voice, “I need you to relax now. Please close your eyes and focus.”

When she is directly behind Sherlock, Irene is more or less out of John’s line of sight, and then Sherlock inhales sharply. A few moments pass where John can guess what it is she’s doing. He tamps down a jealous pang. _She’s a professional,_ he reminds himself, _and that could legitimately be considered a matter of safety._ Then he hears her voice.

“Sherlock? Now.”

The only way John can tell that anything has happened is because Sherlock winces and yells “ _Fuck!_ ” really rather loudly.

His face falls, almost in annoyance, like he’s somehow been tricked.

Irene tuts, then turns to walk to the sink. “Honestly, Sherlock. What was that, five minutes?” He rolls his eyes behind her back before wincing again as he rotates his hips, adjusting to the pressure from the plug.

Irene quickly removes the gloves and washes her hands, then moves to the bench and picks up a ball gag.

“No second chances,” she says, standing in front of him. “Open your mouth.”

Sherlock’s mouth drops open. Irene slips the silicone ball into it and moves behind him to fasten the buckle around his head, then stands in front of him again.

“Look at me.” He raises his eyes to meet hers. “Is it fitting correctly?”

Sherlock nods.

“Okay then. That’s one.”

Irene returns to the bench, and John watches her use the crop to lift a piece of red silk to Sherlock’s palm, which he takes, holding it against the leather crossing his palm.

She lowers the crop slowly, but then at speed and full strength, whips six sharp lashes to the top of his arse, above the plug. His eyes scrunch tightly closed and he groans through them.

“You need to try harder. One more thing to help you focus, I think.” She moves to the wheel and raises the ceiling just another inch. He looks up at the lengthening of his arms, though they are still only on the cusp of being strained in any real way, then settles his gaze to the floor.

“Now that we’re warmed up,” Irene says, “let’s see if you can stick to the two rules you haven’t broken.”

She looks down at the bench, and grins.

* * * * *

John watches Irene start to work on Sherlock with a cat o’ nine tails and tries to ignore the fact that he is, actually, getting hard. He’s not made of stone, and looking at Sherlock naked and aroused is going to arouse him, no matter what the circumstance.

He’s not sure he’s going to reach the point where he’ll have to do something about it right here, even though he’s certain Irene wouldn’t care and might not even notice; she hasn’t looked back at him once since she started.

But there’s a bit of information overload happening, and he can’t quite contemplate relaxing into this enough to finish himself off.

He doesn’t want the distraction.

He’s watching. He’s learning.

* * * * *

Sherlock is nearly fully hard at this point, and his cock twitches with every blow Irene lands.

Irene sets up a pattern of striking Sherlock with the flogger and then letting it drag over the skin that just received the blow. She covers every part of his back, chest, and upper arms, with increasing intensity, until his pale skin is uniformly pink. Sherlock grunts with each hit and groans through the aftermath, and has started to thrust his hips forward as each blow lands.

She drags the tails of the flogger up one leg and brushes them back and forth over his leaking erection. “What are we going to do about this, Sherlock? I confess I’m not all that inclined to help you abide by the rules. Where’s the fun in that for me?"

Sherlock moans in response, his eyes scrunched tightly shut. He breathes loudly behind the ball gag.

“You need to fight it, Sherlock. Let me see you fight it, no matter what I do.”

Sherlock nods, grunting his assent.

Irene continues trailing the flogger up his stomach and chest, then whips it across his sternum in a criss-cross motion for a solid minute.

She pulls the flogger from his body completely, then rotating it in a circular motion, strikes down one hip, then the other, back and forth in precise, clearly practiced movements. His breath is still gasping as he turns his head into his shoulder and upper arm, and his hips flex forward once more.

Even from across the room, John can see a line of fluid fall from Sherlock’s cock.

As Sherlock continues to breathe into his arm, his eyes shut tight, Irene returns the flogger to the table and picks up what looks to John to be a smaller, cordless version of a vibrating massager. She pushes it against a nipple, then switches it on.

“ _Ungh_ ,” Sherlock grunts, startled from his brief respite. His eyes open wide but he manages to keep them trained on the ceiling as Irene slowly circles his nipple. He moans against the sensation, and his eyes fall closed again.

She moves the vibrator across his chest, the skin still reddened and sensitive, until she reaches the other nipple and presses the vibrator into it. His groan is louder now, and starting to contain a whine.

“Fight, Sherlock,” Irene reminds him. “You know the rules. You need to fight."

She drifts the vibrator up from his nipple along his collarbone and the arm stretching up from his shoulder, then guides it back down and around his ribcage to his back. John assumes she is running it down his spine, from the way Sherlock extends his chest and belly forward, and then he can hear it vibrating against the glass butt plug before Sherlock moans loud and long, ending with a shudder.

Irene lets it vibrate against the plug for another five or six seconds, then switches it off. When she stands in front of him again, Sherlock’s eyes are pleading, and they find hers in breathless, unthinking desperation.

She smiles at him warmly even as she reaches for the eye mask on the table. His eyes still follow hers and he doesn't visibly react; it's almost as if it hasn't yet registered that he broke another rule. “You looked,” she almost croons, slipping the mask over his head and tightening it over his eye sockets. “That’s two.”

Sherlock sighs, and hangs his head for a moment, still breathing so hard.

Irene silently picks up the crop again.

She switches the vibrator on and rubs it lightly against his stomach, causing the muscles there to twitch, and again his hips thrust in reflex even as he tries to back away from the wand, at which point she directs a sharp snap of the crop over his nipple.

Sherlock’s head pops up in surprise, followed by a long, low groan.

She moves the vibrator back over his hip, up and down one cheek of his arse, then the other, avoiding the butt plug this time. As she circles him and pulls the vibrator over the other hip, she lands the crop across his backside, causing another grunt and another thrust.

Irene settles it into the base of Sherlock’s erection. He stands up on the balls of his feet, twisting and turning in vain to try to avoid the stimulation. She pulls it away until he seems to catch his breath, then presses it back into his abdomen and runs it along the length of his cock, then back down.

John has never heard Sherlock make the keening noise he’s making now.

She alternates between running it along his cock and leaving it vibrating at the base, back and forth, over and over. Occasionally she'll switch it off, let him just get his bearings, then switch it back on and start again.

After a while she just leaves the vibrator in place just above his erection and moves it with him as he bucks into it, relentless, for ten, twenty, thirty seconds. His grunts become desperate whines, and his breaths are shorter and shorter as he tries to keep fighting.

Finally, she leans over and whispers something in his ear.

Sherlock throws his head back between his arms as his orgasm explodes through him. His hips pump forward in powerful thrusts, his cock spilling out onto the floor in front of him, and there’s a noise caught in the back of his throat as he stops breathing for a second. Eventually his head drops forward as he takes deep, gasping breaths around the gag, and Irene leaves the vibrator pressed into his lower belly for a few more seconds, then pulls it away and switches it off.

“That’s three,” she says. Her voice is playful. And threatening.

* * * * *

John is as close to coming in his jeans as he has been since he was a teenager, but he presses down on his erection and tries to take deep breaths. He knows it would help him relax if he closed his eyes for a few minutes to collect himself, but he barely even wants to blink for fear of missing a moment of what is happening before him.

He thinks about what Sherlock said before, about the pain and the denial and the escape it provides from the constant motion in his head, and now John can see it, really see it, and he is suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelmed with emotion.

He could do this for him, he thinks. He _wants_ to do this for him.

* * * * *

As Sherlock hangs and recovers, Irene matter-of-factly collects a towel from under the sink and wipes the floor clean, dropping the towel at the edge of the bench. She moves to the back of the cage and unlatches a small metal cylinder with carabiner clips on both ends from the wall. Sherlock barely notices as she lowers the cage ceiling and connects one clip of the cylinder directly over his head, then moves both the chains attached to his wrists to the clip hanging from it. She twists the clip back and forth, and John can see now that the cylinder is some kind of rotating socket that spins entirely around, meaning Sherlock will have much less control at his wrists.

She moves back to the wheel and raises the ceiling slowly, his arms extending above his head, then completely straightening, then straining, and finally he groans, clearly back to being aware of his surroundings, as she lifts him from the floor until only the balls of his feet and his toes are touching the ground.

“You went three for three, Sherlock Holmes,” Irene says as she walks back over to him, picking up her crop and sweeping two small items into her palm as she passes the bench. “Now, you are going to pay for it.”

Sherlock can feel the new twist at his wrists and clearly recognizes that his balance is going to be difficult to maintain. He appears to be focusing on breathing as evenly as he can.

“Show me that you can let go of the silk,” she demands, and Sherlock complies. Irene catches it as it drifts from his hand, and uses her crop again to lift it back to his grip. Then she fits the items she picked up from the bench - earplugs - one at a time into Sherlock’s ears.

Irene stand back and looks at him. Naked, hard, blindfolded, hearing muted, mouth gagged, arms strained, balance precarious.

John looks, too.

* * * * *

She waits for almost an entire minute, then connects the crop sharply with his left nipple. She pauses again, then hits the right. A pause, then the left one twice more.

Sherlock’s chest caves back instinctively, but he also doesn’t want to lose his connection with the floor, so he whines and tries to stop his motion from taking him too far off balance. The second he regains some control, Irene cracks the crop against one nipple or the other, maybe once, maybe four times. He growls through his pain and frustration, but manages to stay still.

Eventually Irene deposits the crop on the bench and picks up a pair of rubber-coated spring clamps connected by a black rubber cord. She pinches one hardened nipple between her thumb and the side of her forefinger and closes the clamp around it, then does the same on the other side. She tugs lightly at the cord, testing the clamps, and hears Sherlock moan in response.

She returns to the bench and picks up another wand, this one with a cord attached to it. John watches her crouch down next to the armoire to plug it in, then shake the cord out as she stands, trailing it behind her. She moves a switch at the base of the wand, and John can now see a thin clear tube, about six inches long, bending at the tip, which is shaped in a small oval.

He can see it because it is giving off a slight purplish glow. He can also hear it buzz.

He understands now why the nipple clamps are sheathed in rubber.

Irene slowly brings the wand up toward Sherlock’s collarbone. When it is about half an inch from his skin, there’s a crackling noise as the wand sparks bright purple.

Sherlock jumps back and quickly inhales.

Irene lets him rebalance, then returns the wand to its target, holding it close enough to spark again. Sherlock shudders, groaning slightly on every exhale, but he’s expecting it now, and doesn’t try to move away.

She drifts the tip around the outside of his chest, then down and across his ribcage, the wand continuing to crackle as it transfers the current to Sherlock’s skin. Occasionally he jerks involuntarily, and Irene allows him to just barely find his footing before starting up again.

At one point Irene pulls the wand away, adjusts a dial at the base, then quickly touches it to his stomach. Sherlock gasps sharply and jumps again, his shoulders caving over as he moans, long and low.

Whether this is from the pain of the higher voltage or the fact that his cock is already stirring again, John can’t tell.

Irene turns the dial back down and returns the wand to his stomach, letting it pass slowly back and forth, creeping lower over his hip and upper thigh. Sherlock holds his breath as she trails it down between his legs, then wails as she drifts it up over his balls and down the length of his cock, which continues to thicken.

He exhales as Irene pulls the wand away from his body, his hips twitching forward.

Moving to stand facing his side, she turns the dial up and presses it hard to the small of his back. He shouts behind the gag and arches forward, and she meets him with another jolt to his stomach, and he jerks back. Then his legs give out completely for a second as he shudders, and moans, and hangs, for a long moment, until he finds the floor again, rather unsteadily. Once again, he has started to leak.

She stays at his side, alternating between touching his back and his front, sometimes one side twice in a row just to throw him off, always waiting just until he finds his balance to charge him again.

After a minute, she steps back and watches him brace himself for the next hit, waiting, waiting, then slowly daring to relax, then brace again out of panic, then relax.

Irene adjusts the dial down again, but also turns and picks up the vibrator from the bench. Holding it adjacent to the electric wand, she presses them both together to the center of his chest, drifting until the vibrator head touches one nipple clamp, leaving it there for a few seconds, then dragging them together across to the other one.

Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat on every inhale, and he whines loudly throughout every exhale.

She moves the vibrator and wand together back to the center of his sternum, then down, so slowly, over his stomach and into his lower abdomen, settling just above his straining erection, then back up to his sternum, then back and forth from one nipple to the other, over and over again, a regular, predictable pattern.

After a few minutes, Sherlock has gone almost quiet, apparently lost to the sensations that must be coursing through his body. His balance is fairly steady, his breathing is deep, there's just a short, mindless moan on each exhale.

Finally, Irene lifts both implements from his skin and waits, just a second, just long enough for one smooth inhale.

Then she grabs the cord connecting the nipple clamps and in one swift, powerful motion, yanks them off.

Sherlock’s back instantly arcs rigid as he yells behind the ball gag, long and loud at first, then stuttering as he inhales just enough to keep yelling. At the same time, his hips snap forward in an erratic rhythm as he comes, and comes, and comes, fluid pulsing from his cock with every thrust.

The stiffening of his upper body combined with the motion of his hips prevents him from maintaining any kind of steady contact with the floor, so he twists and spins from the socket holding his wrists, struggling desperately to prevent his weight from hanging only by his hands.

His chest caves and expands, trying to assuage the heat of the violent release of the clamps. His yells become stuttering groans, and then outright sobs. His hips continue to buck through the immediate aftermath of his orgasm. He works to lift up from his hands, to bend his elbows and relieve the pressure on his shoulders, but the strength isn’t there to hold up his body for more than a second.

* * * * * *

He thrashes like this for at least a minute, during which John forgets to breathe.

* * * * * * 

Eventually Sherlock seems to become aware that he can’t solve all his problems at once, and decides to make balance his priority. His sobs are temporarily replaced with grunts of determination as he works to grip the floor with his toes and figure out how to adjust the gravity of his body in a way that will give him some control over the twist of the socket, but his efforts are undermined at irregular intervals by reflexive thrusts of his hips in the final throes of his orgasm. He fights to steady his breathing, the only thing he can truly control at the moment.

When he finally, finally finds some balance, a tiny bit of precarious steadiness against lingering involuntary muscle twitches, he exhales in a long, shuddering sigh, and lets his head loll forward to his chest, surrendering to a complete, absolute exhaustion.


	5. Chapter 5

John is so riveted by the image before him that he barely notices when Irene rejoins him on the couch. She sits back, crossing one long leg over the other, and regards Sherlock thoughtfully.

“Look at him, John, and tell me there can’t be beauty in suffering. He’s gorgeous right now, and you know it.”

It’s a strange beauty, John thinks, but yes, an absolutely undeniable one.

“I can’t lie,” Irene continues. “There are still things I wish I could do to him. Bloodplay, for example, is against the rules of this particular house. I couldn’t cut him even if he asked for it. But what I wouldn’t give to see him like he is now, only with a single line of crimson running straight down his spine.”

John finds that he doesn’t disagree.

He sits with that for a moment, the idea that he might _want_ to see Sherlock bleed, just a little bit. He thinks about what that means, and also what it doesn’t have to mean.

He thinks maybe he’s figured a few things out.

He can’t take his eyes off of Sherlock, but turns his head in Irene’s direction. “Look, you should know… if he calls you again, you should see him. I told him he could come back, if he wants to.”

Irene smiles. “He won’t.”

John doesn’t want to admit how glad he is she said that, but uncertainty lingers. “How do you know?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, Doctor Watson. You get very good at figuring out why people put themselves here. I have clients I see regularly, like clockwork, week in and week out. Some of their lives are upside down, some of them are as happy and content as any one of us can be, and either way they kneel on the floor for me once a week. They need this like air or water. With Sherlock…” She sighs and looks over at her handiwork again. “He was never like that to begin with, and he has you now, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” John says. “But I’m not sure I’m up there with air or water.”

Irene turns to him. “To him? You are.” She stands up and looks back to Sherlock. “John. Would you like to bring him out of it?”

“Are you sure?” John stands, glancing quickly from her to Sherlock and back again. “I don’t… is there anything in particular I need to know?”

She smiles kindly. “There’s no trick to this part. Wait for him to come down a little more. You’ll know when he’s ready.”

John follows her across the room to the cage. She unlocks the wheel and turns it, lowering the cage ceiling just until Sherlock’s feet can plant firmly on the floor again. Sherlock issues a slight moan which hints at gratitude, but he's still at the mercy of the involuntary convulsions of his body.

Irene looks at him for another long moment, then moves back to John and offers him her hand. “You’ll be fine. In fact, I think you both will be.”

“Thank you,” he says quietly. He shakes her hand, then surprises himself by taking it in both of his. He clears his throat and smiles as he lets go.

“You’re welcome,” Irene replies, holding his gaze. She lifts her hand up to cup his cheek, just briefly, before moving past him, unlocking the door, and making a quiet exit.

* * * * * *

John worries for a minute about where to begin. Sherlock is clearly no longer in a heightened state, but he still hasn’t settled completely, and John doesn’t want to startle him if he can help it. He stands about three feet away, wondering if Sherlock is back from wherever he goes, if he can sense John’s presence somehow.

John watches as the shudders slowly dissipate, the compulsive twitching calms. He waits until a full minute passes with no signs of agitation, and only steady, even breathing.

Finally, slowly, he reaches out one flat hand, and places it in the center of Sherlock’s chest.

* * * * *

_John. Yes. John._

* * * * *

Sherlock raises his head at the contact and takes a deep breath around the ball gag, leaning forward as much as he can. John feels like Sherlock is trying to sink into his hand, a physical sigh of relief, and has to blink away tears at the honesty of the reaction.

He leaves his hand on Sherlock’s chest as he reaches up to remove the earplugs, then the blindfold. Sherlock slowly squints and blinks open his eyes, adjusting them to even the low light, then bows his head. John unbuckles the gag, slips the straps forward, and pulls until the ball pops free of Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock stretches his jaw open and closed as John sets everything on the bench. He turns back to take Sherlock’s face in his hands, gently rubbing the joints with his thumbs, then leans in and kisses him as tenderly as he ever has. Sherlock’s mouth doesn’t work quite right yet, but neither of them care.

John lets one hand drift down to rest on Sherlock’s abdomen while he moves around to grip the handle of the plug. “Okay?” he whispers, and Sherlock nods, then grunts as John pulls it free. He wraps the plug in the towel on the bench, then turns the wheel to lower the cage ceiling another few inches.

“You stayed?” Sherlock asks, his voice slightly hoarse.

John starts unfastening Sherlock’s cuffs from the socket. “Yeah, I stayed,” he replies, catching his eye and smiling a little.

Sherlock is rolling his neck from side to side, wincing as he finds a tight spot. “I’m glad. Did you have a wank?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” John mutters as he unhooks the second cuff chain.

Sherlock groans as he tries to lower his arms. “Easy,” John says quietly. “Keep them up there a minute.” He turns him around and rubs the circulation back into his left bicep and tricep, then works the top of his shoulder and the muscles under his shoulder blade. He slowly lowers the arm, pausing for a moment when he hears Sherlock suck in a breath through his teeth, then continues, settling it at his side.

He starts to work on the right arm. This time, as it lowers, he extracts the piece of red silk from between Sherlock's hand and the cuff, and slips it into his pocket.

John continues working on Sherlock’s shoulders, digging into the muscles there. Sherlock rolls into John’s touch, letting his chin drop forward as John rubs up into his neck and the back of his head. John is rewarded with a low groan of satisfaction.

Sherlock lets him work at his neck and shoulders for a few more minutes, then turns around and presents his wrists. John unbuckles each cuff and pulls them off, tossing them to the bench. When his hands are finally free, Sherlock slides them alongside John’s head and pulls him into a proper kiss, his mouth working quite well again. There is heat there, and love, and gratitude.

John pulls Sherlock’s forehead down to press against his own. “Are you okay?” he whispers cautiously.

“Very,” Sherlock answers, his voice low and strong, hitting the note that always sparks something deep in John’s belly. He pulls back to look John in the eye. “Are you?” he asks, his tone serious.

“Yes. Surprisingly, maybe, but yes, I really am.”

“Good.” Sherlock pulls him into another kiss, this one tender, almost chaste, full of relief, and it lasts and lasts.

“Let’s go home,” he says, when they finally separate.

“Sherlock.”

“What?”

“Do you want to get dressed first?”

Sherlock looks down, clearly having forgotten he was naked. “Oh. Right. That’s probably a good idea.”

He looks back up at John.

And they giggle.

As Sherlock climbs back into his jeans, John wanders over to the door to retrieve his t-shirt, and his curiosity gets the best of him. “So, I have to ask… When she whispered in your ear, and you…” John waves his hand in the general direction of Sherlock’s groin. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

John hands him the shirt. Sherlock shrugs into it and takes a moment to tuck it into his waistband, smoothing it out, and then looks up, almost shyly, and his voice is quiet again.

“It was your name. She just... said your name, and I... I let go.”

John is suddenly so overwhelmed he can hardly breathe.

He takes a step forward and slowly, almost haltingly, brings his hand to the center of Sherlock’s chest, right where he placed it before. He feels a heartbeat through fabric and skin and sternum, and closes his eyes.

Sherlock’s hand covers his.

They stand like that for a moment or two, until John regains a measure of certainty that his voice will work if he tries to use it.

“I was thinking,” he says, and no, he still has to clear his throat. He looks up and sees Sherlock’s eyes blink open and eyebrows raise, gently encouraging.

“I was thinking,” John continues, “you know how Mrs. Hudson can never get anyone to rent 221C?”

At this, Sherlock’s mouth begins to crook into a smile.

“Maybe… maybe we could find a use for it,” John finishes, looking at Sherlock’s hand, covering his hand, covering Sherlock’s heart.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock whispers.

“Yes,” John says quietly. He grins and looks up. “I mean, I’m not going to wear the outfit, but…”

Sherlock smiles and cuts him off with a kiss, strong and hungry, and this one also lasts a very long time, although it’s never long enough. They separate, still breathing each other in.

“Can we go home now?” Sherlock murmurs.

"Yeah," John says, and takes his hand.

* * * * *


	6. Epilogue

“Mrs. Hudson? Can I talk to you about 221C?”

“What about it?”

“We’d like to rent it.”

“I was wondering when you were going to ask me about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Do what you like with it. I’ve never been able to let it anyway. Only put in some soundproofing, would you?”

“What? Soundproofing? We’re… I mean, Sherlock’s going to use it... as a lab.”

“Well, whatever you're going to call it, you need soundproofing, dear.”

John decides he will worry about how he will ever look Mrs. Hudson in the eye again later.

* * * * *

There is, in fact, soundproofing, among other construction, and some wiring, and a new coat of paint, all of which take about a month.

Turns out Sherlock is quite handy with a drill, although he grumbles about bullets being a more efficient method of putting holes in the wall.

* * * * *

There are other purchases, in addition to furniture, and metal grids.

John wants to do most of the shopping online, which is how he had acquired the few things they had already, but Sherlock rolls his eyes and hails a cab.

And _of course_  he cannot be bothered to provide a nondescript intersection as the destination.

“Harmony, on Oxford Street.”

John sputters, and Sherlock is nonplussed.

“We need to go in person, John, see things, pick them up, feel them, check the fit.”

“Yeah, okay, and the cabbie needs to know all this.”

“Please, we’re all adults. You’re not shocked, are you?” Sherlock calls to the driver.

“The missus loves that place,” the cabbie replies cheerfully.

Sherlock is right, as usual, and John’s unease wears off quickly, mostly due to oversaturation; when 93 different kinds of dildos are on display, they tend to lose their shock value.

* * * * *

They have conversations about using 221C as punishment, when, say, Sherlock behaves particularly poorly at a crime scene, but it doesn’t feel quite right to either of them. This isn’t about working through Sherlock’s stroppy moods. If it _was_ about that, they’d be down there every other bloody day, and neither one of them could reasonably be considered young anymore.

* * * * *

There is an actual light, now.

A small one, a bare blue bulb, just in the upper corner of their bedroom, behind the door.

There’s a matching one in 221C. If it’s turned on or off in one location, it turns on or off in the other.

Sometimes Sherlock will ask before John even leaves for work if they can have the lights off that night.

But sometimes, Sherlock goes downstairs before John gets home, flips the switch to turn the light on, and curls into the sofa, staring at the bulb. When he sees it turn off, he gets up and paces and starts making fists and shaking them out.

It is still mostly Sherlock who asks, or uses the light. John can, and has, but he doesn’t like to unless he’s relatively sure Sherlock would have asked for it anyway.

Some nights, though.

* * * * *

Tonight is one of those nights, because John has had one of those days.

He tries, he always tries, not to get annoyed with the patients, who are usually reasonable and polite and at most a little anxious about what their aches and pains mean.

But some days he gets more than his fair share of hypochondriacs and people who practice no self-care and people who have looked up their problem on the internet and argue with his diagnosis and an image of Sherlock (facedown on the floor wrists and ankles cuffed together) floats behind his eyes and he can almost feel the dopamine ricochet through his brain.

So when he arrives home that night, wired and frustrated, he takes a deep breath as he bounds up the stairs and hopes Sherlock is amenable.

He feels a surge of adrenaline when he goes into the bedroom and sees the light on.

* * * * *

He takes a quick shower, pulls on a t-shirt and jeans, and sits on the edge of the bed.

He closes his eyes, and steadies his breathing.

This is what he does upstairs, while Sherlock shakes out his hands downstairs.

He maps it out, considers each step, what he will ask for, what he will offer. He puts things in order, runs through it, rearranges. He thinks about the pace, about the limits and the rules and the consequences, about what will happen when, and what will happen if.

Then he stands up and switches off the blue light.

* * * * *

Downstairs, he pushes open the door to 221C, turns back to slide the lock home, and walks a short hallway to what used to be an ordinary living room, but is now their own version of Room 3 in a row house in Maida Vale. There is a smaller version of the cage, with an adjustable ceiling. There is an armoire, fully stocked with implements of all shapes and sizes. There's a bench, and a sofa on the wall opposite the cage.

It's perfect.

Sherlock is barefoot and pacing, slowly, deliberately, his gaze focused on the smooth hardwood floor. He is wearing John’s now-favorite outfit, the black jeans and black t-shirt.

He stops when John enters, and when he looks up, his blue-grey eyes are shining with need.

"On your knees," John says, and Sherlock sinks to the floor.

* * * * *


	7. Postscript: The Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little postscript in honor of John and Sherlock's anniversary, January 29th.

John pulls off of Sherlock and leans back, catching his breath. Sherlock moans at the loss of contact, his erection jutting forward, slick and glistening in the low light. **  
**

John wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and just looks.

Sherlock’s arms are stretched over his head, angled out slightly from his body, and secured to the grid at his wrists, which are encased in thick fur-lined cuffs. His ankles are similarly cuffed, splayed out and attached to the grid, his legs separated just an inch or two beyond comfortable. The position places a constant strain on his thighs and hip flexors, and somewhat limits the range of motion of his lower torso.

The pale skin of Sherlock’s chest and abdomen is splotched with a heated pink, evidence of their earlier activity.

There’s a blindfold. There are also wireless headphones covering Sherlock’s ears, through which he is receiving a constant low blur of white noise. A six-inch-long metal bar is set across his mouth like a bit,  the leather strap secured behind his head.

In his right hand is a piece of red silk.

They’ve been at this particular activity almost twenty minutes. John works at Sherlock with his mouth, sometimes a hard, steady rhythm, sometimes just the tip of his tongue, for varying lengths of time, sometimes seconds, sometimes a full minute. Then he pulls back and watches as Sherlock, in a tormenting loop of denial and frustration, fights his way back down from the brink.

John smiles to himself at the idea that he could easily do this for hours, but there’s something he needs to take care of, the reason why he could never actually do this for hours, and he’s not feeling particularly patient.

He rises to his feet and gently lifts the headphones from Sherlock’s head. Sherlock’s position has knocked a couple of inches from his height, so John is able to lean into his ear quite easily.

“I’m getting a bit uncomfortable in my jeans. Do you know why?” he whispers in a low, even voice. Sherlock whines and inclines his head toward John’s mouth, but John grabs his hair and holds his head straight and still. Sherlock inhales sharply as his neck muscles tighten.

“It’s because I’m incredibly hard for you. Doing this to you, seeing you like this, it gets me so fucking hot.” John suddenly lets go of Sherlock and steps back. He pulls his t-shirt over his head, tosses it aside, then pulls down the zip on his jeans. “Did you hear that? I’m stripping right now. Can you imagine me?”

Sherlock stops breathing.

John steps out of his jeans and pants and noisily kicks them toward his shirt. Then he leans forward, his hands gripping the grid wall, careful to not let any part of his body touch Sherlock’s, except his mouth, back against his ear.

“I’m standing in front of you right now, Sherlock, naked and hard as a rock.” Sherlock finally starts breathing again, moaning low in his throat and straightening his head as though John had gripped his hair again. “And I want you to listen.” He runs his tongue up the shell of Sherlock’s ear, swirling the tip into its ridges. “I want you to hear me come for you, right here.” Sherlock groans behind the bar across his mouth and slams his head back against the grid.

John continues, low and close. “I’m going to suck you off for one solid minute. And I want you to picture me jerking myself off at the same time, because that’s what I’ll be doing.” He bites at Sherlock’s earlobe, just hard enough to sting. “But you remember your rules, right? Don’t you dare come. And don’t think about something else, or I’ll know. You have to think about me, naked and kneeling in front of you, my mouth on your cock, my hand on mine.” Sherlock issues a moan of pure need, and nods in shaky agreement.

John sinks to the floor in front of Sherlock and kneels up, running his lips along Sherlock’s erection before sliding his mouth over the head and taking him as far back into his throat as he can. He holds him there, then pulls off entirely, spits into his own hand, and starts to work himself as he swallows Sherlock again, sucking at him in earnest and in a matching rhythm to his own.

The sensation is fantastic, but it’s an awkward angle, and as much as he enjoys denying Sherlock, he’s not that interested in prolonging his own release. After the promised minute, he pops off with a wet sucking sound and grips the metal grid to leverage himself back up to standing, positioning himself sideways, alongside Sherlock’s body. He grabs a fistful of hair again and shoves his mouth against Sherlock’s ear as he starts working his cock again at a feverish pace.

“Fuck, I’m close, Sherlock, I’m so close. I’m going to spill all over you. God, just listen to what seeing you like this makes me do. What I sound like when I can’t control myself any longer.”

John maintains his tight grip on Sherlock’s hair as he groans into his ear. His need swallows him and he dissolves.  “God, fuck, yes yes _yes fuck yes_ …” He goes stock still for a moment, then shudders against Sherlock’s side, dropping his head against his shoulder and maintaining only enough awareness to make sure he actually comes all over Sherlock’s abdomen and cock.

He knows Sherlock can feel it, the added warmth against already hot skin. The pace of Sherlock’s stuttered respiration matches John’s, but his whines are rising with need, imploring, while John moans with total satisfaction.

As John catches his breath, he draws one finger along Sherlock’s strained erection, spreading the fluid along its surface. Sherlock’s muscles have gone almost completely still, save for the rise and fall of his chest, each breath faster than the one before.

“Come for me, Sherlock.” John’s voice is low and Sherlock groans as John’s fist surrounds him and starts jerking him off at a fast pace. “Do it, Sherlock, now.”

And Sherlock does, his hips thrusting as far forward as they are able as he fucks John’s hand, adding to its mess and shouting behind his bit in aching, desperate relief.

John smiles against his ear and drops his voice to a whisper. “That’s it, love, just like that.” Sherlock’s head lolls forward as John gently strokes him through the aftermath, his mouth against Sherlock’s temple. “Beautiful, just beautiful.”

John continues murmuring gentle reassurances and leaves his body pressed alongside, a steadying anchor as Sherlock comes down and settles into his head again. As always, he waits for Sherlock’s breathing to regulate, then counts at least a minute beyond that, before he brings them back to the present moment.

“Hey. Are you okay there for a minute, while I clean us up?” John asks quietly between kisses, reaching up to brush the curls from Sherlock’s damp forehead. Sherlock nods, making an exhausted but affirmative noise behind his gag.

John puts one last kiss on his forehead, then moves to the sink and soaks a flannel under the tap. He runs the warm, damp cloth over Sherlock’s midsection, then the floor, before returning to the sink to wash up properly.

A few moments later, John starts by gently removing the blindfold, then the gag. While Sherlock blinks back into awareness and works his jaw, John unhooks the the ankle cuffs next, then the wrists. He stays in front of Sherlock, dropping a few gentle kisses along his collarbone as Sherlock gently lowers his arms, rotating them to move some blood back into his shoulders.

Then Sherlock drops them around John’s neck and leans down to kiss him properly, long and deep.

“Thank you,” he says breathlessly, when at last they separate.

“Happy anniversary,” John whispers, and pulls him back down.


	8. Postscript: Red Silk

_“On your knees.”_

It is always the first thing John says upon entering 221C. He says it now, before he has even pushed the door all the way open.

But Sherlock is already naked and kneeling in the center of the caged area, sitting back on his heels, hands in his lap. His head is bowed, his eyes are closed, his breathing is so slow and steady that it is almost silent.

He looks repentant. John knows he isn’t.

He moves around the room, sets a few things in place. Their day had been very long and very trying. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for this, but Sherlock had asked, and he acquiesced.

A short session, though. Maybe a little bit different, tonight.

He moves to the control panel for the grid and lowers the back wall forward to a very precise angle out from the floor. As always, while John prepares, Sherlock never moves, never looks up, never acknowledges in any way that anything is happening around him.

When John is ready, he looks at Sherlock for a long moment, then walks over to stand directly in front of him. 

“Lift your head. Don’t look up, just straight ahead. Come up on your knees. No talking.”

John is struck by Sherlock’s beauty in the oddest moments, like right now. Sherlock follows his instructions perfectly, with instant, eager grace. There were nights when he was simply stunning in his submissiveness, and tonight is one of them.

John almost (almost) lets himself get lost in it. It’s so tempting. But then the day’s events slam back into the forefront of his mind.

He came so close to losing the man kneeling before him today, for reasons of that man’s hubris and impulsivity, nothing more.

Anger surges over his affection, consuming it, drowning it, and John takes a slow, steadying breath. They’d have that fight later.

He pulls the blindfold from his back pocket and fits it over Sherlock’s eyes.

“Now. Get my cock out, using only your pretty little mouth. You can put your hands on my legs for balance, but otherwise, just your mouth.”

Sherlock reaches his hands out and feels his way up, resting them at John’s hips. He shuffles forward a bit on his knees and presses his mouth to John’s belly, lowering it by feel to the button of his jeans. He sets his teeth on the corner of fabric above the button and pulls up and back, trying to stretch the buttonhole wide enough. It takes several tries, but when the button finally pops free, he shuffles closer again, angling his head to find the zipper pull, which he lowers over the course of several sharp, awkward jerks.

When Sherlock returns to the open waistband, biting as deep into the fabric as he can, and begins to try tugging it down, John realizes that they’d be here all night if he actually made Sherlock do this. Instead, he gently pushes Sherlock’s head back for a moment, and shoves the denim down to just above his knees.

When John straightens up again, Sherlock runs his hands slowly up John’s bare thighs and leaned forward to bury his nose in the cloth alongside John’s erection. He takes a long, slow inhale, until John suddenly grips the hair at the back of his head and pulls it away. Sherlock gasps, and John’s voice is an angry, tight whisper in Sherlock’s ear.

“Stop that. This is not about you. _I_ am not here to indulge _you_. _You_ are here to get your mouth on my cock as quickly as you can. Get on with it. And you can keep your hands behind your back from now on.” John releases his grip with a shove.

Sherlock sits back and lowers his head a moment, a small indication of contrition before he tries again. Maintaining his balance blindfolded and without his hands is difficult, and it takes a moment before he shuffles his way to the right position. Using his nose to open the gap in John’s boxers, he reaches in with his lips and tongue and makes several fruitless attempts to somehow hook John’s cock and pull it out. When that doesn’t work, he finds his way to the lower half of the opening and bites down on one side the fabric there, pulling it around John’s erection until he feels it finally bob free. He follows its hard length with his cheek until he reaches the head, which he surrounds with his mouth and a groan of satisfaction, sucking down to the base and back out again.

But John only allows Sherlock a couple of pulls before he puts an end to it with a brusque “That’s enough” as he steps clear of Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock, clearly taken by surprise, has to shuffle forward a bit to keep from falling over. He slowly returns to his default position, back on his heels, his demeanor betraying his confusion and some disappointment, which makes John feel a bit smug, if he’s being honest with himself. Denying Sherlock feels quite good at the moment.

“Now, go down on your hands, and move back until your feet hit the grid.” 

Sherlock does as he is told, slowly walking himself backwards as John shucks his jeans off the rest of the way, along with his pants, and pulls his t-shirt off over his head. He moves around Sherlock and uses the restraints he had placed earlier to cuff one ankle to the bottom of the grid, then the other.

“Push up off your knees for a second,” he says quietly, and as Sherlock lifts up, he slides a small cushioned mat in place underneath. “Okay, back down.” When Sherlock is steady again, John slides his hands down one arm to encircle his wrist. “Let me have this,” he says, and Sherlock shifts his weight to the other side. John brings his wrist back to the grid and cuffs it, the restraint holding his arm back and away from his body at a carefully predetermined angle, designed to cause stress, but not pain. John does the same to the other arm as Sherlock breathes hotly through his teeth, rolling his shoulders, adjusting his hips, futilely trying to find a comfortable position.

“All right?” John asks, and Sherlock nods slowly. “Okay.” John takes a minute to admire the sight before him, sliding a hand along Sherlock’s back, down over his arse and back up, smoothing over the skin bunched between his shoulder blades, then along the back of his neck and into his hair. He smiles as he feels Sherlock brace himself for another yank, but John just pets him, drifting his fingertips along his neck before standing up.

“One more thing before we get started,” John says. He retrieves the small piece of red silk from the pocket of his discarded jeans and presses it into Sherlock’s cuffed right hand. He leans over to whisper in Sherlock’s ear. “I’m not going to gag you, but your mouth is about to be very well engaged.”

With that, John does grip the hair at the back of Sherlock’s head, and twists it around to kiss him, hard, messy, graceless, both of them working at it and groaning into it, neither of them caring about the awkward position.

John keeps his grip on Sherlock’s hair as he suddenly stands up, and before Sherlock has time to catch his breath from the devastating kiss, John slides his cock fully into Sherlock’s open mouth.

Sherlock replies with a startled but gratified moan. He adjusts quickly, pushing his lower jaw forward to close his mouth around the surface and draw back. John lets him move up and back once, then again, then a third time.

Then, John takes one step forward, closing the distance and forcing Sherlock’s head back, limiting his range of motion. His cock was now half buried in Sherlock’s mouth, and at this angle, with John so close, Sherlock could not move his head back far enough to pull off of it, even if he wanted to.

John thrusts forward once. Sherlock grunts, breathing heavily through his nose. John pulls back slowly, keeping himself just inside Sherlock’s mouth, for a beat or two, then thrusts again, feeling the head of his cock bump hard against the back of Sherlock’s throat. He pulls back again. He does all of it one more time, quickly forward, then a slow pull back, and holds still for just a moment.

Then, reaching up to grip the metal crosshatch of the grid wall angled above his head, John starts fucking Sherlock’s mouth. Properly fucking it, deep and fast and unrelenting.

The frustration of the day pours out through the kinetic energy of his body, the snap of his hips chasing the warm wetness of Sherlock’s stretched mouth. He matches Sherlock’s stoccato groans with every thrust, feeling the vibrations of Sherlock’s voice box against his cock. At one point he slams forward and holds himself there, just for a second, just long enough to feel Sherlock gag, before pulling back and resuming his rhythm.

He does that again, and maybe once more, or twice. He sees tears leaking out from under the eyemask, a result of the gag reflex, and is almost surprised at himself that he doesn’t care. As he feels Sherlock’s throat contract uncontrollably around the head of his cock, as he listens to the wet, guttural, obscene noises he’s causing, he realizes how rarely he uses Sherlock like this. Really just fucking _uses_ him.

Yes, John is the dom in this room, but neither of them are under any illusions that Sherlock isn’t the center of attention. Everything John does he does _to_ Sherlock, _for_ him, to take _him_ out of his head, to move _him_ from ecstasy to agony and back again. John certainly finds his own pleasure during their scenes, just as often as Sherlock does, but it is still usually in service of Sherlock’s submission. John never just takes what _he_ wants, Sherlock’s needs be damned.

But tonight, yes, tonight it feels good to do just that. It feels so fucking _good._ And so John gives over to it, to pounding mercilessly into Sherlock’s throat, chasing his own release, thrilling to the idea of watching his seed spill out of Sherlock’s mouth. He more or less loses track of time as he surrenders, for once, to some self-indulgence, to a few moments of purely hedonistic behavior. He loses _himself_ , and he revels in it.

But then, quite suddenly, time seems to slow down, almost freeze to a stop, like an old film in a broken projector, when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a piece of red silk fabric float gently toward the floor.

* * * * *

It _feels_ like slow motion in his head, but in reality, John snaps into action the instant he sees the silk.

Because every time the blue light went on, John prepared just as seriously upstairs as Sherlock did downstairs. In addition to mapping out the progress of the entire scene in his head, he also knew exactly what he would do if Sherlock uttered his safeword or dropped the silk at any point along the way. He planned for it, every time. Because if it happened, he would not, _could_ not, hesitate or question. His purpose in that moment would be to release Sherlock from any restraints as quickly and safely as possible, immediately check for any physical injury, and assuming there was none, ground Sherlock in whatever way made sense until Sherlock recovered. John’s actions had to be instantaneous, automatic, and controlled.

So as soon as he sees the silk leave Sherlock’s hand, John steps back, withdrawing from Sherlock’s mouth, and drops to his knees. He brings one hand gently but firmly alongside Sherlock’s head and focuses on keeping his voice low and calm. 

“I’m starting with your wrists, Sherlock, okay?” For now, John must ignore the lines of saliva dripping from Sherlock’s gaping mouth, the cacophony of gasping, wracking coughs as Sherlock tries to catch his breath. He _was_ breathing, and absent any other immediate medical distress, John’s first priority is freeing him from the grid.

He holds his left hand against Sherlock’s heaving sternum, and with his right, releases Sherlock’s wrist from the buckle. He cradles it lightly, checking for injury, any unintentional twist or sprain. 

“Does this hurt?” he asks, relieved at the shake of Sherlock’s head, even among choked coughs, staggered breaths. John brings the arm down slowly, encouraging Sherlock to plant his palm on the floor. He massages up and down the arm, trying to bring the blood back into it, until he could feel Sherlock supporting his own weight.

“You’re okay like that?” Sherlock nods slightly. “Okay. Okay. Now the other one.” John releases the other wrist, again making sure nothing has been injured before bringing it to the floor as well. He runs his hands again along Sherlock’s arms, feeling for sufficient tension and strength, and is not quite satisfied that he finds it. “Go down on your elbows for me, love,” and Sherlock complies, stretching his hands out flat against the floor and dropping his head. The coughing has subsided, but he was still working on long, deliberate breaths.

John stops to look at him and works to quell the panic rising up the center of his body. _Nope, not now. You are definitely not allowed to freak out yet._ He takes a deep breath and concentrates on making his voice calm and sure.

“All right. I’m going to get your ankles now.” John lets his hand drift up to cup Sherlock’s shoulder as he reaches around to unbuckle one ankle, then the other. He feels compelled to make sure he doesn’t break physical contact, not even for a second. He trails his hand across Sherlock’s back as he shifts from his knees to sit properly on the floor in front of him. “That’s it, you’re completely unhooked. I’m going to slip the blindfold off now, okay?” Again Sherlock nods. He’s still breathing heavily as he reaches up to wipe at his wet mouth with the back of his hand. John moves his own hands up to Sherlock’s neck, and continues one up around his cheek to push the blindfold back and off.

Sherlock’s eyes are wet. They squeeze shut for a second, then slowly squint open. He blinks, opens them a little bit further, then closes them again and leans forward to rest the side of his head on John’s thigh. In slow, deliberate movements, he twists his body to tuck his hip and shoulder against the floor, then pulls his arms into his chest, and coughs, and works his jaw, and shudders.

John leans back to reach behind him toward the cupboard, where he is just able to tease at the corner of a blanket with two fingers until it drops from its shelf. He throws one end as best he can over Sherlock’s long legs, then smooths it up over his shoulder. He returns his hand to Sherlock’s head, combing through his hair, stroking down over his back, then up again, over and over.

And dying, a little, on the inside. _Oh, Watson. What have you done_.

“It felt like I was being punished,” Sherlock says quietly.

John’s hand freezes for an instant. He doesn’t know exactly how to respond. After all, almost everything they do in 221C could be classified as punishment, in one way or another, but he doesn’t think that’s what Sherlock means.

“For today. It felt like you were punishing me for today, for what happened… out there.”

John’s eyes fall closed. “Oh.” He leans his head back and blinks up at the ceiling. “Oh, Sherlock. I might have been. I mean, I can’t swear to you that I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking that, but maybe subconsciously...” 

Sherlock sighs. “I suppose I deserved it.”

“No,” John says forcefully. “No, Sherlock. We agreed, before, that what happens down here can’t be about… real life, our life outside this room. I don’t get to punish you here for pissing me off up there.” John bends down to press his mouth into the side of Sherlock’s head. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my intention, it really wasn’t, but I can’t promise it didn’t seep in to what I was doing to you. I let go, in that moment, and I shouldn’t have.”

Sherlock stays silent, and John feels like he doesn’t want to breathe, doesn’t want to move into the next moment and find everything changed. He genuinely doesn’t know if he has crossed a line he can’t uncross, breached a trust he couldn’t get back. They had worked so hard to get where they were, to the point where he enjoyed their time down here just as much as Sherlock did, and he wasn’t sure how he would deal with having fucked it all up.

“Oh, for God’s sake, John, stop panicking,” Sherlock mutters from John’s lap. He hitches into a sitting position, the blanket draped over his shoulders, and turns toward him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise. You’re allowed to get out of your head here, just as much as I am. It’s why the safeword exists. And it worked exactly like it was supposed to.”

John’s eyes go a bit wet, and he laughs at himself. “I was just about to say ‘I never want to hurt you,’ but then realized how ridiculous that sounds. But it is true, somehow?” He smiles sheepishly. “I never want to hurt you, Sherlock, not ever. And I know I’m not making sense, but do you know what I mean?”

“I do, and you won’t.” Sherlock reaches a hand to John’s head, cups his jaw, meets his gaze. “I’d never be down here with you if I thought you were capable of hurting me.”

They lean together for a deep, gentle, passionate kiss, reassurances passing between them in the most honest way they know. Eventually they separate and pull themselves up off the floor, each trying to hide a small groan at the effort, and go in search of their clothes.

“Let’s agree to twenty-four hours,” Sherlock says as he shrugs into a dressing gown, which he always does grudgingly. (He’d be just fine heading back upstairs starkers, but John insisted on not chancing a run-in with Mrs. Hudson. “Oh please, she’d _love_ that,” Sherlock had whined once, and John didn’t admit that he agreed.)

“Sorry?” John replies, pulling his jeans up over his hips.

Sherlock retrieves John’s t-shirt from the floor, and tosses it at him. “If we fight, or if you overreact by getting irrationally and unjustifiably mad at me when I conduct a perfectly reasonable pursuit of a suspect, we don’t come down here for at least twenty-four hours. Starting _after_ we have our make-up sex.”

John can’t help but laugh. “Yes. That’s a good idea. Twenty-four hours, then.” He pulls the door open and waits at the threshold for Sherlock. “Not to sound like a really old man, but why don’t we go up and just get some sleep, then see what we can do to start that clock running in the morning?”

Sherlock stops in front of John. “That is also a good idea.” He leans down to steal one more kiss, during which John feels Sherlock tuck something into the front pocket of his jeans. 

He doesn’t have to look to know it’s a small piece of red silk.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic would absolutely not be here without **msdisdain** (on [Tumblr](http://msdisdain.tumblr.com/) and [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/msdisdain/)). I drafted the first part of this in 2011, never posted it, forgot about it, then found it this spring when I was cleaning out my old LJ. I sent the then-just-bits-and-pieces to her and she more or less demanded that I finish it. She encouraged and brainstormed and beta'ed tirelessly as I made my way through 17K words, even when I texted things like OMG WTF AM I EVEN DOING THESE BOYS ARE KILLING ME. She is the literal best.


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